
Glass- 
Book. 






i_ 






w % 



SKETCHES 



OF 



LIFE AND CHARACTER. 



U 



BY A GENTLExMAN 

WHO HAS LEFT HIS LODGINGS, 



PUBLISHED BY CLAYTON & KINGSLAND, 
AND C. S. VAN WINKLE, 

1820. 









C. 3. Van Winkle, Printer, 
10 1 Greenwich street. 



PREFACE. 



About a year ago, a gentleman, without a 
servant, took an apartment on the first floor 
of my house. He was, apparently, a young 
man ; but his look was not diffident and un- 
practised like that of most young men, but 
bold and decided, like the countenance of a 
lieutenant of hussars, who has served a cam* 
paign or two, and as piercing as that of an 
Old Bailey lawyer. He wore long black 
hair over his forehead, and used some words 
In his language which I never saw anywhere 
but in the Bible and Common Prayer, and 
which, I suppose, are now out of use. He 
took two servants, and began to frequent 
the world. I observed he went to Almack's, 
and the French play •, was admitted into the 



IV 

Travellers' club, wore stays, and used much 
starch in his neckcloth. Notwithstanding 
this, his life was not so regular as that of 
most young men of fashion. He did not al- 
ways go out to dinner at a quarter before 
eight, nor always come home at five in the 
morning, nor always get up at half-past two 
in the afternoon. I thought this extraor- 
dinary, because I had observed,- that those 
who pretend to any fashion, and claim merit 
from their want of punctuality, are generally 
the most exact people possible to be always 
twenty minutes too late wherever they go. 
My lodger, on the contrary, very often went 
out riding upon his return from a ball, and 
then came and dined by himself, or with my 
family, at four or five o'clock : nor was he 
of the usual placid, indifferent humour, that 
men of the world generally are. Some- 
times a darkness would come over his face, 
and he would sit frowning at the chimney- 
piece in his own room for a fortnight toge- 
ther. Every now and then, too, he would 
go away for a few days to Dublin or to Ed* 



inburgh, without any apparent reason. But, 
on the 5th of February last, he set out from 
my house, about twelve at night, saying, he 
should return in a few days. Since that 
time I have heard nothing of him ; and be- 
ing in great want of money to pay my taxes, 
I went to search, to see if there were any 
thing I could sell for rent, of which I had 
not received one farthing. I found a few 
old clothes, a dozen pair of boots, and a 
large number of manuscripts : these were 
written in all kinds of languages, ancient and 
modern, more than I had ever heard of: 
some few were in English ; and one called, 
" On the State of the Constitution," in a 
totally different hand. I suspect it was 
written by the gentleman, for there was only 
one who used sometimes to pay my lodger 
a visit. With these papers in my hand, I 
went off directly to Mr. Longman : and he 
has given me some hopes that I may re- 
cover a part of my rent by their means. 
Who the author may be, I do not pretend to 
fay ; or whether the last paper relates at 
1* 



VI 



all to himself : I leave that to the courteous 
reader ; and I beg him to recollect, that I 
am not answerable for the opinions of a gen- 
tleman who has left his lodgings. 



JOSEPH SKILLETT. 



Sackville Street, 
May 24, 1820. 



CONTENTS. 



English and French Pride and Vanity, 


y 


English and French Taste, . 


13 


Men of Letters, .... 


16 


Irresolution, ..... 


21 


Foreign Travel, , 


27 


Vanity and Love of Fame, 


30 


The World, 


36 


National Character, .... 


48 


Literary Taste, «... 


63 


On Field-sports, .... 


66 


An Agreeable Man. — Society in London, 


69 


On Plays, 


80 


Political Economy, . 


110 


State of the English Constitution, 


121 


Marriage, ....*. 


159 


Orders of Knighthood, • 


168 


The Wandering Jew, , 


171 



ESSAYS, AND SKETCHES 



OF 



LIFE AND CHARACTER. 



ENGLISH AND FRENCH PRIDE AND 
VANITY. 

We often hear of the pride of the English. It is 
in fact the quality which distinguishes them from the 
nations of the Continent, who are on their side re- 
markable for vanity. These two passions are the 
cause of most of the differences which are observed 
by every passenger from B^ver to Calais, in govern- 
ment, in towns, in society, dinners, and dress. Till 
now, the object of the French people has always 
been to make their power conspicuous to other na- 
tions, even at the expeuse of liberty and happiness 
at home. Such was the basis of their admiration for 
Louis XIV. and Napoleon ; and as long as they 
could show lace ruffles outside, they did not mind 



10 

how dirty the shirt was beneath. Even now, their 
zeal for a free constitution, if carefully sifted, will 
be found to arise very much from the notion that a 
limited monarchy is the fashion ; and they think it 
would not become the Great Nation not to have as 
good a Chamber of Deputies, and as much liberty of 
the press, as their neighbours. The Englishman, on 
the other hand, absolutely requires that the king 
should govern according to law; he cannot bear 
that any one should have a superiority over him, be- 
yond what is clearly recognised by the constitution 
as necessary ; his obedience is paid to the magistrate, 
but his admiration is reserved for virtue and talent. 

Look to their buildings. On the Continent you 
see magnificent public works ; but then the money 
of the state has been disposed of by the will of the 
monarch, in order to gratify the vanity of his sub- 
jects. In England, no expense of this kind is borne 
cheerfully, which does not go to raise something in- 
trinsically useful. The private palaces on the Con- 
tinent are also much finer than those of England ; 
but in order to show great apartments for receiving 
company, the nobles submit to live in garrets and 
ascend common stairs ; a lodger gives concerts in 
the first floor, and an old woman fries pancakes in 
the entrance. In England, a man of the smallest 
fortune endeavours to have a house to himself, where 
he occupies a few low, dark, dull rooms ; — l?ut he is 
independent. 



11 

Society on the Continent is one of the greatest 
luxuries; it is, in fact, an interchange of polite 
vanity, and as it is itself so great an enjoyment, it 
constitutes a principal object. But the English, 
who are proud and reserved, take no pleasure iu 
society, and accordingly they only meet when one 
of the number can gratify his pride and his hospitali- 
ty by giving a dinner or a supper. Conversation is 
then an involuntary obligation, and except over a 
bottle of wine, which at once heightens the spirits 
and opens the heart, is seldom enjoyed by the real 
John Bull. It is in closing to his own fire-side, in 
excluding all but his own family, in settling himself 
in a large arm-chair, with the consciousness that he 
is not obliged to entertain any body, that consists 
the comfort, which is the boast of his language and 
his life. Comfort generally means a great conside- 
ration for self, and a total forgetfulness of other peo- 
ple. It is the same attention to comfort, or the same 
solitary pride, which prevents a restaurateur from 
flourishing in London : a better dinner might then 
be obtained for half the sum ; but Mr. Bull likes to 
have a mutton-chop in his own parlour. For the 
same reason, a town on the Continent is full of 
reading-rooms, but an Englishman has his newspa- 
per at home ; and whilst a fine day in France brings 
every living soul out of doors, the haughty tailors 
and punctilious green grocers of England spend the 
evening in their close room of six feet square, almost 



12 

poisoned by the smell of the cheese and apples in the 
cupboard. If you look at the dress of the islanders 
and the continentalists, the same difference prevails ; 
the latter are very gaudy on occasions of display, 
which they regulate with consummate knowledge 
and taste ; but at other times they are slovenly, and 
every one dresses according to his fancy ; — so that a 
man who cannot afford finery is admitted into the 
best society, almost in rags. In England, neither 
men nor women wear rich clothes ; but the poorest 
artist, or most wretched author, would be humiliated 
in thought, if he could not appear at an assembly 
dressed like a duke. Hence that intolerant unifor- 
mity of costume, that severe and apparently childish 
raillery of the least deviation from fashion, which is 
so peculiar to Loudon. And here, by the way, let 
me enter my protest against this daily and hourly 
inquisition; not only are men of the world required 
to conform to the general costume, but persons who 
have no pretensions to dress are forced to drill by the 
fashion of the day. Dandelo does little else in con- 
versation but make sharp and ingenious remarks up- 
on the length of one 'man's coat, and the colour of 
another's waistcoat ; and endeavours to be entertain- 
ing by noting the variations from the real standard 
of taste. Of all men living, he has the least reason to 
complain of the Fall, since the transgression of Adam 
has given him a source of innocent occupation, and 
the whole stock of his wit. 



13 



ENGLISH AND FRENCH TASTE. 



I have often wondered at the great difference 
which is observable in England and France in taste 
for the beauties of nature. Whilst the English are 
travelling hundreds of miles for a view of a Scotch 
or a Swiss lake, and climbing Ben-Nevis or Mont- 
Blanc, a Frenchman shrugs up his shoulders at the 
horreur of such scenes, and is sufficiently pleased 
with a parterre of roses, or a dipt lime-tree* At 
first I attributed the insensibility of the latter to their 
want of opportunity and town life ; but the fact is, 
they live six months in the country in the finest sea- 
son, (May to October,) whilst the English only see 
their gardens as the flowers begin to fade. Then I 
believed the French had not reached this important 
step in the progress of civilization ; hut though this 
may account for the want of taste in the mass, it will 
not explain the apathy of the readers of Dante. Tas- 
so, Racine, and Voltaire, to the beauties of n^ure. 
The reaj reason I believe to be the want of depth of 



14 

soul amongst these people. Taste may be divided 
into three parts : — lsfc Natural taste, which is pleased 
with bright colours anl soft sounds : this is the taste 
of ihc sav.-gf and the child. 

2dly. Thinking taste, or taste of the mind, which 
i pleased with any effort of intellect, regular walks, 
ard regular sounds : this is the taste of man in pro- 
ge-s, of Le ISctre in landscape gardenings and 
Giofto in pi-ming. These two species of taste are 
common to both n.itions. 

Sdly. Feeling f a^te, or taste of the heart, which 
connects ever) thi'-g present with some emotion of 
its owr. : this, again, ma- be subdivided in a thousand 
ways, which are all comprehended by Mr. Price un- 
£ tl Sublime, Beautiful, and Picturesque. 

O these three the Frenchman has only an idea of the 
se< und; that is to sa\, he admires scenes which ex- 
press fertility, richness, order, convenience, splen- 
dour gayety, or pleasure; but he cannot enjoy, or 
rather shrinks from those which signify terror, pow- 
er, majesty , infinity ; and he has not studied nature 
sufficiently to pay homage to her creation, when they 
do not. accord with convenience or utility. 

The feelings of these people are much too light 
and variable; the tone of their minds is much too 
gay and too sociable to take pleasure in the grander 
( s of nature ; they do not love to er.ter into them- 
selves, to dwell on a gloomy idea, or to conceive a. 



15 

terrible event : they banish the spectacle of death 
from their stage, and, I believe, would willing-lv ex- 
clude the beetling- cliff and the stormy torrent from 
nature. 



te 



MEN OF LETTERS. 



Paris. 

It is said, that when one of Bonaparte's meanest 
flatterers, and who is of course one of the meanest 
flatterers of the present King-, was proposing a re- 
modelling 1 of the Institute, the Emperor answered, 
Non> laissons au moms la Republique de Lcltres. 

This community, however, can hardly be said to 
have the features of any government, and more 
nearly approaches the fabled existence of society, 
called by jurists "a state of nature." There is no 
head or visible authority, either hereditary or elect- 
ed; the governing principles are self-love, hatred, 
and envy ; property, which here consists in reputa- 
tion, is like all original properly, the produce of a 
man's own labour, and is generally the object of 
many treacherous stratagems, and cruel outrages, 
on the part of the poorer members. 

It is also ? remarkable coincidence, that the richer 
a man becomes the more he is attacked, and the 



u 

equality of rights consists in the impunity of wrongs. 
I happened lately to meet with some of these sava- 
ges. Lselius has a sort of patriarchal influence 
amongst them, solely on account of his superior age 
and correct memory ; he can awe his fellows by quo- 
ting the decisions of their grandfathers, and amuse 
them by playing a garrulous fountain of anecdote; 
he is in what was called by Wilkes an anecdotage ; 
is trifling in his conversation, and superficial in his 
writings; but his works were published forty years 
ago, and he avails himself of the notion, that the 
booksellers and public of that day were far superior 
to any tiling at present to be found on the Quai Vol- 
taire, or the Palais Royal. He is withal extremely 
neat in his language, and indulgent in his senti- 
ments ; and is thereby enabled to conceal the vague- 
ness of his ideas and the malice of his heart : both, 
however, appear when he commits himself to print. 

Junius is a man of an equal age, but who resigns 
his claim to distinction on that ground, in order to 
obtain the more difficult success achieved by youth- 
ful enterprise; he is deeply learned, but Laving 
reached eminence by his scholarship, he now wishes 
to throw it off, as a postillion takes off his boots when 
the stage is finished. I was surprised to find him al- 
ways in the house of one of the most frivolous women 
of the age, and often wondered how each could de- 
rive pleasure from the intercourse of the other, til! 
2* 



is 

some one made the remark that a valuable com- 
merce of vanity was carried on between them : she 
furnished him with a reputation for gallantly, which 
he wants, and he furnished her with a character for 
wit, which she had no hope of obtaining- by any ex- 
ertions of her own. The hours they pass together 
must indeed be disagreeable to bolh, for he misun- 
derstands scandal, and she misquotes history. I 
found him the other day hinting to ]j$r his suspicions 
of an intrigue which had been blown a twelvemonth 
before, aud she soon afterwards asked him if it was 
true that Catharine of Medicis had ordered the St. 
Barthelemy at the instigation of Louvois. 

There is no class of persons, it. may be observed, 
whose failings are more open to remark, than men of 
letters. In the first place, they are raised on an 
eminence, where every thing they do is carefully ob- 
served by those who have not been able to get so 
high ; in the next place, their occupation, especially 
if they are poets, being either the expression of su- 
perabundant feeling, or the pursuit of praise, they 
sire naturally more sensitive and quick in their emo- 
tions than any other class of men ; hence a thousand 
little quarrels, and passing irritabilities. In the next 
place, they have the power of wouuding deeply those 
of whom they are envious. A man who shoots en- 
vies.another who shoots better; a shoemaker even 
envies another who makes more popular shoes; but 



19 

the sportsman and the shoemaker can only say they 
do not like their rival : the author cuts his brother 
author to the bone, with the sharp edge of an epi- 
gram or bon mot. Again, it often happens, that a 
man of letters is ignoraot of the world ; hence he 
offends against a number of the laws of company, re- 
veals a hundred little feelings which he ought to 
conceal, and often shows the resentment of injured 
pride, in return for what was meant as kindness. 

The quality which is most offensive in poets, is 
their very ready servility. It is not easy to read 
with patience the verses which make Augustus a god, 
and exalt Nero into a prodigy of virtue. 

Too many of the worst men have got the tribute 
of praise from the best poets ; Polycrates, Augustus, 
Nero, Justinian, Louis XIV. Charles II., Bubb Dod- 
dington, the Duke of Ferrara, have all had their 
wreath of luxuriant laurel from the hands of poets : 
how fortunate it would have been, had we been able 
to say the reverse ; that bad princes had all been 
blamed, and only good ones praised ! The praise of 
poetry would then have been what it ought to be, an 
object of difficult attainment, adding another to the 
few worldly motives which kings have to be better 
than their fellow men: verse would then, indeed, 
have been sacred, and a few lines, expressing in no- 
ble terms the great qualities which had been actually 
possessed by the object of them, would have been 



20 

remembered and quoted to the latest posterity, giv- 
ing a dignity to poetry, an incentive to virtue, and a 
spectacle fitted to unite the approbation with the 
wonder of mankind. 



21 



IRRESOLUTION. 



Paris. 

Franchemont is the man of my acquaintance who 
has the greatest quantity of English spirit, and French 
esprit: his opinions are always liberal, his intentions 
always upright, and his wishes always humane. As 
he joins to the possession of these qualities, high rank 
and an immense fortune, it is no wonder that he is 
perpetually incited by his friends to enter into pub- 
lic life, to serve his country in the field, or bis fellow 
citizens iu the senate. His own ardour seconds their 
advice ; but after ten j ears' deliberation he has not 
yet determined whether he shall pursue the career 
of arms, or whether he shall join himself to a party 
of patriots, and make himself the. dread of an en- 
croaching court; nor is he entirely divided between 
these pursuits. I found him one day eagerly peru- 
sing Euler; when he declared, with emphasis, that 
* the abstract sciences were the occupation best adapt- 
ed to make men happy, to engage his mind without 



22 

irritation, to offer obstacles without any great dan- 
ger of defeat, and to point out results which con- 
tained no disappointment. On another occasion, he 
was examining- Varro and Columella ; and when he 
informed me that he had finally determined to aban- 
don public life, and to make himself useful to mankind 
by the improvement of agriculture, an occupation 
which was of certain benefit to the public, and gave 
a zest to domestic enioyment, I endeavoured, with 
eagerness, to deter him from this resolution ; but the 
more I argued, the more he persisted in exalting the 
charms of retirement. Two hours afterwards, he 
burst into my room, and informed me of the landing 
of Bonaparte. After the first surprise, I asked him, 
"What do you mean to do?'' — "Oh! as for that, 
my resolution is taken : the success of Napoleon 
would put an end to the peace of Europe, and the 
liberty of France : whatever faults I find with the 
present government may be repaired : it is my duty 
as a citizen to arm. I shall offer to put myself at 
the head of the National Guard of my province, in 
which the enemy has landed, and if the King will 
allow me to be independent of his Generals, we may 
have a very speedy success ; — a prosperous event 
will convince the court that the friends of liberty are 
not the enemies of royalty." I approved warmly of 
his intention, and advised him to go instantly to the 
Tuiileries. But before doing so he thought proper 



23 

to consult bis friends. The first be went to was a 
virtuous, but somewhat fanatical Constitutionalist. 
On hearing* his friend's intention, ^ What," said he, 
" will you leave Paris till you have assured to your 
country the observation of the charter ? The present 
is a moment of alarm to the court, and they will 
grant any thing*; but if this movement is repressed, 
the cowl and the censorship will be more active than 
ever. If you value France, go to the Chamber, and 
ask for the appointment of a constitutional ministry." 
Franchemont, somewhat shaken, went to his next 
friend, who, being a Republican, said to him, " It is 
all over with the Bourbons : the whole country will 
be in favour of Napoleon ; and, besides, their bad 
faith is too notorious to make any concession valua- 
ble : wait in Paris, and we may bind down Napoleon 
to a real charter." — <k Perhaps," said Franchemont, 
** the country, as you say, is ready to pronounce the 
abdication of the Bourbons ; if so, I am quiet ; but 
even then I never can favour the cause of Napoleon. 
The assistance of a military chief has always brought 
on the downfall of real patriots. Recollect the ex- 
ample of Cicero; with what fatal imprudence he 
lent himself to the policy of Pompey, and consented 
to prolong the command of Caesar, till at length, 
aware of his folly, he exclaimed to his friend, on en- 
tering upon the civil war, Si victus eris, proscribare ; 
si viceris, tamen servias ; so it will be with the adhe- 



24 

rents of Napoleon. " Notwithstanding my friend's 
speech, his ardour in the Bourbon cause was some- 
what cooled by his friend's ridicule, and he endea- 
voured to blow it again into a flame, by the help of a 
royalist bellows. His loyal friend, however, who 
was a staunch courtier, said, " Franchemont, your 
spirit is excellent, but you must not anticipate the 
King's counsels; it would be wrong to show any 
jealousy of his orders at this time : — go to the foot 
of the Throne, and declare yourself ready to serve 
under any General his Majesty may appoint." 

Distracted by such opposite counsel — unwilling to 
turn his back on liberty — suspicious of the sovereign 
he was about to serve -too proud to ask a favour 
where he meant a service, Franchemont returned to 
ask my opinion. M. de Lasnes, a man of great ex- 
perience, who was with me, heard his doubts, and 
addressed him in a decisive tone : — "Avoid the perils 
of this crisis ; you will lose your own life, and plunge 
your children into poverty and disgrace. Retire 
with them and your wife to your country seat." 
To my great astonishment, Franchemont seemed 
pleased, and even grateful for this advice : he went 
away to prepare his family for the journey. When 
he was gone, I remonstrated with De Lasnes on the 
mischief he had done, both to Franchemont and the 
public. " You are mistaken," said he; " a man of 
his undecided temper caunot be of real use to any 



25 

cause ; before he has finally determined, the first 
moment, which is always the most favourable, will 
be lost ; when he has determined, he will immediate- 
ly repent his choice, and contrast the difficulties he 
encounters with a fanciful picture of the advantages 
attending" an opposite conduct ; too keen of sight 
not to perceive the absurdity of his adherents — too 
impartial to subscribe entirely to any creed — too 
anxious to be right, to bear the idea of being wrong, 
and too ingenuous and too sensitive to be blind to his 
own mistakes, he will often err, and always regret ; 
his behaviour will be a tissue of rash action and 
more fatal inactivity ; he will gradually lose his own 
confidence, aud inspire the contempt of others. 
When applied to conduct, the work of a too subtle 
mind resembles the effects of a mean spirit, and the 
world are better satisfied with a solution which fur- 
nishes a gratification to malevolence, than one which 
supposes a refinement of intellect. They conceive 
themselves entitled to distrust him who does not seem 
unsuspicious of himself, whilst they respect the un- 
deviating line of strong stupidity, and suppose rea- 
sons for a behaviour whidh proceeds from the want 
of them. What, then, shall withstand the man, 
who, to a tolerable understanding and a sagacious 
perception, joins boldness of decision? He will re- 
pair errors, whilst a man of nicer tact, but less firm- 
mess, is content te avoid them ; and having once 
3 



• 



26 

fixed his own plan, he will leave the rest to for- 
tune — 

Hac arte Pollux hac vagus Hercules 
Innjsus arces attigit igneas. 



27 



FOREIGN TRAVEL. 



Paris, 1815. 

The English and the French, after an absence of 
twenty years, have again met in the common inter- 
course of life, and are exchanging bows, ideas, and 
sentiments. 

I overheard, one day, a young Englishman enter- 
taining a French lady with profligate principles, and 
profane jests ; although she had often heard morality 
and religion attacked before, she was so scandalized 
by the coarseness of his conversation, that she at 
last told him his language might suit the vicious 
society of London, but was too wicked for Paris ; 
his companion was, at the same time, telling an ob- 
scene story to a young lady, who fell asleep in the 
middle of it:— These young men are not improved by 
travel. 

An English married lady, whom I knew, was re- 
markable for the plainness of her dress, the modesty 



2C 

ttf her manners, and the piety of her conduct. She 
went from Paris this year with her head made into a 
stand for flowers, her ears never open but to flattery, 
and her mouth full of the pretty phrases, " a little 
flirtation," " innocent behaviour," u harmless dissi- 
pation," " stupidity of married women in England," 
" greater liberality in general society," &c. : — She is 
not improved by travel. 

I know a sensible English tradesman, who used 
to shut a Frenchman out of doors ; and laughed at 
every body who did not speak English correctly, and 
even as vulgarly as himself; he was so pleased with 
the kind reception he got in France, and the patient 
attention with which all his blunders were listened 
to, that he promises he will go and do likewise :— He 
is improved by his travels. 

A farmer of good sense, and good heart, travelled 
through France soon after the peace ; he found that 
the people were neither sulky in their manners, nor 
full of hatred against the English, nor utterly aban~ 
doned to vice and folly, as he had been told ; but, on 
the contrary, civil, gay, and ingenuous; nay, he 
found tolerable farmers, and honest fathers of fami- 
lies ; fewer paupers than in England, and much good 
effected by the Revolution ; he imputed the old 
quarrels of his nation with theirs, to the Govern- 
ment, and recommends to the people to give each 



29 

other the right hand of friendship : — This man is im- 
proved, and will improve others. 

Travellers from the Continent seldom stay long 
enough in England to understand the nature of her 
institutions, and sound the deep seas of her prosper- 
ity. The French think they have shown great dis- 
cernment, as well as liberality, in establishing Trial 
by Jury. They do not seem to perceive that the 
goodness of the stuff depends on the material of 
which it is made, and that a jury must not only con- 
sist of twelve men, but of twelve honest men ; other- 
wise it is only a shirt very well made with rotten 
thread. As long as the members of juries in France 
are liable to be gained, or awed by Government, the 
institution is good for nothing, and indeed rather 
pernicious. 

The Spaniards, in the same humour, borrowed 
from England the liberty of the press ; but they for- 
got to provide for the liberty of the individual who 
was to print ; and the consequence was, that any 
author who published against the reigning authority, 
was immediately seized and imprisoned. England, 
like a work of genius, deserves and requires a slow 
and frequent perusal to understand its beauties. 

Many an anomalous custom contains an important 
lesson, and many a paradoxical law is deduced from 
a profound and salutary observation. 
3* 



30 



VANITY AND LOVE OF FAME. 



Paris. 

Vanity is a passion which crosses its own pur- 
poses, and begets contempt where it means to in- 
spire admiration. It begins by trying to deceive 
others, and always re-acts by deceiving and blinding 
bim who practises it. The conscience is thus sooth- 
ed into torpor, and nothing more is wanting to make 
a man base to the lowest degree. Vanity and mean- 
ness are constant companions ; for a man accustom- 
ed to sacrifice truth and honesty, to obtain applause, 
can more easily do it to gain the substantial goods of 
life. This rule, however, has many exceptions: 
Florus was a man who, as he himself acknowledged 
at the end of his life, owed his ruin to the indulgence 
of his vanity ; for a little applause he often sacrificed 
great objects ; to obtain all kinds of fame he often 
made himself completely ridiculous ; and to revenge 
himself on those who eclipsed him in reputation, he 
alienated one by one all his friends and supporters : 



31 

yet, though a distressed and ambitious man, he never 
bartered a single opinion, or suffered the smallest 
stain upon his honour, for the sake of fortune or of 
power. 

Proteus did not take so many shapes to escape 
questions as vanity does to provoke admiration. 
Juntus is a very good man, of tolerable sense, but no 
knowledge ; yet nothing will satisfy him but being 
thought a great scholar. Lucius has spent three 
parts of his life in reading, but he employs the re- 
maining quarter in trying to per»uad< . world that 
he is a very idle, dissoiute bellow, in order that they 
may wonder where his knowledge comes from. 
Needwell telib every one that he is descended from 
Henry IV of France; whilst Pearson is equally 
anxious to proclaim that he is the son of acobler, and 
that all his riches ana consequence are of nis own 
making. Vausien, who is a mere man of the world, 
affects the greatest love of solitude ; but Tirlemout, 
the author of a treatise on cubic equations, fatigues 
every company he is with, to let them understand 
that he is acquainted with all the scandal of the day. 
I had got so far, when my friend Paradell came in, 
and read my paper. He said, when he had finished, 
ct The fault, as you yourself show, is not in being 
vain, but in placing vanity in a wrong position. A 
wise man, as a good author has observed, knows his 
defects, and hides them ; a fool betrays his by at- 



tempting to cover them. This is the darn in the 
stocking which is said to be the sign of premeditated 
poverty. It is the same thing with good qualities. 
A wise man is vain of his talents or knowledge ; but 
he shows them in a modest way, that the world may 
supply the praise due to them ; a fool adds the praise 
himself, and the world, jealous of its authority, gives 
none. Vanity, which every one blames, is the most 
universal of all motives of action. Et qui de con- 
temncnda gloria librum scripsit, nomenaffixit. There 
are many characters so slightly built, as to be capa- 
ble of no higher or more noble incitement. Were 
they without vanity, they would be indolent in af- 
fairs, uncivil and rude in society, selfish in their ac- 
tions and behaviour. It is to a desire to conciliate 
public opinion that we owe all the virtues of weak 
characters : and even many great men have been 
sustained in their career by the same useful passion. 
What do you say to Cicero, to Sully, and a thousand 
others, (not to mention our friend Eschines,) who 
have derived their best support from the happy facul- 
ty of being pleased with themselves f* 

" It cannot be denied, that vanity furnishes to 
many individuals their whole stock of happiness. 
Sibillus is so fortunately constituted, that no ridicule, 
no neglect, no series of bad success can wrest from 
him the opinion that he is the first poet of the age. 
In a garret in Gray's Inn Lane he enjo)s the ima 



33 

ginary applause of a listening world, as much as 
Petrarch could do when he was crowned in the Ca- 
pitol. 

" There is no motive which ends in self more noble 
than the love of fame. This is one of the passions 
which has, in an extraordinary degree, a good and a 
bad side. There is nothing more silly and con- 
temptible than the mere besoin defaire parler de soi, 
which animates so large a proportion of the candi- 
dates for fame. The wearing a particular dress, or 
driving an uncommon carriage ; writing quarto books 
about nothing, or making a speech to every mob that 
can be collected, are generally proofs of a desire to 
obtain distinction without the qualities which deserve 
it. But there is a love of fame that is the most pow- 
erful instrument of which Nature makes use to pro- 
duce discovery in science, and eminence in arts. A 
man of genius feels himself alternately impelled to 
perform great actions, and deterred by the difficulty 
and labour of the enterprise. In this struggle, the 
desire of exertion would gradually become less vio- 
lent, and would generally, in the end, be stifled by 
pleasure and indolence, did not the love of fame fur- 
nish an auxiliary incitement to action. Pushed on 
by such an impulse, the man of genius overcomes 
every obstacle ; he undervalues health, time, life it- 
self, in comparison to the attainment of his object ; 
he investigates, weighs, and provides against the 



34 

most minute blot in his plans ; be passes the night 
without repose, and the day without recreation ; he 
forgets the wear of continual thought, the labour 
which perfection requires, or the dangers which an 
untried enterprise may offer : — till, at length, he 
bursts forth in splendour, like the sun through a 
mid-day fog, the poet, the philosopher, or the hero of 
his age. But his glory is not yet complete. In cen- 
turies still to come, his verse shall swell the bosom, 
awake the tear ; his discovery shall exalt the mind 
of the student, or guide the rudder of the navigator ; 
his example shall animate the breast of patriots, and 
keep alive the love of immortality. 

*' Having mentioned this subject, I cannot but no- 
tice the cold objections of some metaphysicians. It 
has been argued, that posthumous fame is an unrea- 
sonable object of desire, as no man can obtain it till 
he is incapable of enjoying it. To this 1 shall an- 
8we>, ihat he who has done actions to deserve it. has 
already obtained it in imagination ; he feels himself 
living in the future ; he foresees the homage that 
will attend upon his name. It would be easy to 
show, that almost every great poet and philosopher 
has foreseen his own immortality. If it be objected, 
that this foretaste of fame, being unaccompanied by 
any homage, must be an airy and unsubstantial plea- 
sure, I shall briefly reply, that it is of the same na- 
ture with many others which have always been ap- 



predated. If it is a pleasure to contribute to the 
happiness, though without hearing- the thanks of an 
unknown beggar; if it is a pleasure to be read and 
admired by distant nations, though they transmit no 
testimony of their admiration ; if it is a pleasure to 
be loved by persons in England, even when on a 
voyage across the Atlantic; — it may also be a plea- 
sure, and one of the highest degree, to be conscious 
that we shall obtain the admiration, the blessing, and 
th clove of future generations. 

U ^he vanity of which the severe philosopher 
speaks so rigorously, is the cordial which makes life 
supportable to individuals, and the chain of roses of 
mixed society. And when it rises to a love of fame, 
and especially of immortal fame, it is the spring that 
moves the greatest and most useful characters. 
Mention to me the names of those who < sui me- \ 
mores alios fectre merendoj without vanity or love 
of fame !" 

Seeing I did not answer, my friend snapt his fin- 
gers in token of victory ; I laughed at his vanity.— 



3& 



THE WORLD, 



There is no idea more vague or more unfounded 
than that which a young- persou attaches to the word 
World, It is perpetually held out by moralists and 
divines, that the world is a wilderness, where every 
vice and every bad passion grows without restraint; 
and those who have lived their whole lives in, and 
have, in fact, formed a part of that very world of 
which they complain, are continually venting* their 
satire against its malice, its injustice, and its ingrati- 
tude. How much, then, is a \oung man surprised, 
when, upon entering" with more than due caution 
upon a field where he expects to be beset by snares, 
and assailed by calumny, he finds himself received 
with easy and unaffected kindness, and frequently 
obliged to the good nature of a < asual acquaintance. 
He is unable to trace this phi Ian th ropy to its true 
cause; he is not aware that, although each indivi- 
dual may be engaged in the pursuit of his own inte- 
rest or passion, the society bears no enmity to 



37 

fey whom no one has yet been rivalled or thwarted. 
There is a general and superficial love of our neigh- 
bour in rnaukiud, which to him appears sincere and 
genuine benevolence. He goes on, careless and 
confident, till his progress awakens jealousy, and his 
imprudence gives room for slander. His indignation 
is roused ; he recollects the admonitions of his books, 
and again begins to rail at the ambition, avarice, 
malice, and vanity of man. His disappointment 
breaks out into bitterness, and his mistake begets 
suspicion, which become the elements of education 
to a new generation. It may be worth while, then, 
to consider the imputed faults of the world, each in 
their turn, and to endeavour to inspire a just candour, 
rather than a total abhorrence of it. 

Ambition, instead of being always a bad passion, 
is one which has led to many of the enterprises most 
beneficial to mankind. A desire of distinction in- 
spired a Sully and a Franklin, as well as a Richelieu 
and an Alberoni. The difference is, that this passion 
is subservient to the welfare of mankind in good and 
well-regulated dispositions, whilst, in bad hesrts, it 
tends only to the aggrandisement of the individual. 
A man of pure ambition will always sacrifice his own 
elevation to his principles, whilst he whose ambition 
is impure will always sacrifice his principles to his 
own elevation. The first always looks upon the 
maintenance or furtherance of certain measures as 
4 



the chief thing* to be desired, and upon himself as an 
instrument for promoting 1 them : the second views 
his own possession of power as the chief thing to be 
desired, and the accomplishment of general objects 
as a work that may be forwarded or postponed, ac- 
cording to convenience. A man, rightly ambitious, 
will rejoice even in the success of a rival, if it is like- 
ly to advance the public welfare, whilst a badly am- 
bitious man has the disposition, unjustly attributed 
to the great Lord Chatham ■ 

rt Would save his country if be could, 
But d n it, if another should." 

But this point, namely, the usefulness of ambition, ib ; 
it should seem, sufficiently obvious ; therefore I shall 
not insist upon it The next worldly passion of which 
I shall speak, is the love of gain, to which I may join 
the lave of pleasure. Divines are never weary of 
holding up these two propensities as absolutely vi- 
cious in themselves, and tending only to misery in 
this world, and the next. I cannot agree in this re- 
presentation ; it is agreeable to the benevolence of 
the Deity to suppose that he showered down the 
flowers and fruits of the earth, not to tantalise the 
being whom he created, but for his comfort and en- 
joyment* What, then, can be more natural and 
right than that he should exert his physical and men- 



tal faculties in order to obtain them ? And the con- 
sequences are such as might be expected from em- 
ployments agreeable to the will of the Creator. The 
individual finds his mind occupied and interested, his 
health improved, and his prospects continually bright- 
ening ; the community increases in wealth and 
knowledge ; the arts which contribute to the enjoy- 
ment, and instruction which tends to the improve- 
ment, of man, advance with equal steps. Observe 
the countries where the love of gain, and the spirit 
of traffick have most prevailed — at Florence in the 
fifteenth century, in Holland and in England — and 
you will see that they are the same which have made 
the greatest discoveries in science, and produced 
many of the ornaments of modern literature; the 
reason of which is clear ; for it is only when men, 
by their industry and pursuit of wealth, have amass- 
ed a sufficient stock lo lay out something on super- 
fluities, that they can allow any thing for the support 
of astronomy and poetry. 

It has been often objected, that the progress of 
wealth introduces dishonesty ; but this is a mistake 
founded on superficial observation. The honesty of 
a rude peasantry is the honesty of ignorance : it has 
no more merit than the temperance of a man who, 
never having seen grapes, should leave them hang- 
ing on the bush. The first sight of money dissipates 
ihk species of honesty. But when society has ad- 






40 

vanced in civilization, there arises, instead of it, ?i 
more enlightened integrity, which is founded on the 
precepts of morality and the control of opinion. 

Great merit is often placed in abstinence from 
sensual enjoyments. There are, undoubtedly, ex- 
amples of men who give so exclusive an attention to 
the preparation of luxuries for their own personal 
use, chat they can hardly afford time for the duties 
which the} owe to their God and to their neighbour ; 
but fur a person to say, that he must renounce the 
indulgence ot the senses altogether, for fear of being 
entirely absorbed b\ it, is to confess a degree of phy- 
sical appetite and a want of moral taste, which does 
but little honour to his temperance* Nor is there 
any sense in supposing that we are intended to de- 
rive all our pleasures from the mind. Our bodily 
constitution is so joined to the mental, that our pains 
are aiwavs communicated from the one to the other ; 
and the Stoic himself could not be insensible to the 
attack of a cholic, or the amputation of a leg. Why, 
then, should we not take advantage of the dispensa- 
tion of nature, which also gives a participation of 
pleasures ? And ought we to lose any opportunity 
of partaking in the bounty, and being grateful for 
the providence of our Creator? The man who gives 
a feast is offended if none come to partake of it : may 
not the Supreme Being have somewhat of the same 
feeling to those who reject his gifts ? But, say the 



41 

well-meaning- persons who disdain and despise the 
usual conduct of the world, is it not kicked to con- 
sume in luxuries what might afford subsistence for 
thousands of poor people ? This argument, which 
might have had weight in times of ignorance, is in- 
disputably disproved by the science of the present 
day. It is now evidently demonstrated, that U e 
money which is spent on manufactures of conveni- 
ence and luxury supports the families of industrious 
labourers, whilst that which is indiscriminately given 
in charity, too often tends to the increase of an idle 
and miserable population. 

The result which I would enforce is, that we should 
enjoy the conveniences of this life, without setting 
too great a price on them. Our occupation should 
always be to improve our own lives, aud add to the 
happiness of our neighbours ; but a pleasure which 
fairly offers itself, and which has no vice in it, shoald 
not, because it is a pleasure, be avoided. 

With regard to the malice of the world, it may be 
remarked, that those who complain most of it are 
often those who deservedly suffer by its judgment ; 
nay, the malice of which they are victims is often 
only a retribution for that with which they have 
treated every individual who fell under their obser- 
vation. Yet it must be allowed, that the opinion of 
the world is often stained with precipitancy and in- 
justice. The first rumour that is propagated produ-* 
4* 



42 

ces an immediate sentence, from which it is difficult 
to obtain an appeal ; and very often the fullest justi- 
fication is unable to allay the storm of prejudice by* 
which an innocent character has been assailed. 
Yet, even in these cases, it is generally to be ob- 
served, that some imprudence has been committed, 
which has open d the way to misconstruction. Per- 
haps, upon the whole, the general effect of an active 
and prying- police of tongues over conduct, is bene- 
ficial. It teaches men to observe decorum, as well 
as to consult feeling; it teaches them, or should 
teach them, to act in secret under an additional con- 
trol, which is often more pou erful than conscience ; 
and when women see their slightest imprudencies 
exaggerated into gross misbehaviour, it must teach 
them to avoid temptation, which is the most certain 
means of being free from evil. But when a person 
has satisfied the reasonable demands of propriety, as 
well as the just dues of conscience, it by no means 
becomes him to be doubtful or timorous A bold 
countenance, and a confident manner, impose on the 
great as well as the little vulgar; and mercy, it must 
he owned, is never shown to him who once confesses 
himself in the wrong ; and this, perhaps, because it 
is usually a proof of want of courage, the most un- 
popular of all defects. 

I shall be told, perhaps, of instances of excellent 
men who have suiFered the martyrdom of opinion. 



43 

Undoubtedly there are such ; but many who seem to 
be condemned without cause have something" in their 
characters that is mean or deceitful. Others have 
neither of these defects, but an undisguised liberty 
of speech, or an impatient quickness at taking" offence, 
which makes them the natural enemies of their spe- 
cies. At first none appear to be more unjustly per- 
secuted than those who change their opinions, either 
in politics or religion. Reason would teach us that 
such a change was rather a favourable proof of can- 
dour, but experience has shown that it is so gene- 
rally the effect of a want of integrity and principle, 
as to justify the saying of a lady of great talents, that 
she never could help confounding a convert and a 
convict. 

It must be confessed, however, that mankind take 
too great a delight in speaking ill of their neigh- 
hours. It is, indeed, quite surprising tc see persons, 
generous and friendly in their nature, retail the most 
scandalous reports concerning people whom they 
would willingly assist with half their fortune. There 
is often no greater contrast than between the inno- 
cence of a man's life and the malice of his conversa- 
tion ; and he who would spare neither his time nor 
his fortune for a beggar and a stranger, often exhi- 
bits a want of charity and humanity to a companion 
and a friend. This is nowhere more remarkable 
than amongst the French philosophers, as exhibited 



44 

in their own writings, and in the correspondence of 
Grimm. They are full of compassion for a poor fa- 
mily at the other end of the kingdom, and at the same 
time are pulling one another to pieces like wild 
beasts. The cause, no doubt, is, that their envy and 
malignity are only excited by those who are and may 
be their rivals. And, in the present age, scandal, 
detraction, and calumny, have taken the place of 
open enmity and private war, just as forgery and 
private stealing have become the substitutes of high- 
way robbery and murder. On this subject I cannot 
refrain from quoting the eloquent denunciation of 
Jeremy Taylor :*— 

"Every man hath in his own life sins enough, in 
bis own mind trouble enough, in his own fortune 
evils enough, and in performance of his offices fail- 
ings more than enough to entertain his own inquiry; 
so that curiosity after the affairs of others cannot be 
without envy and an evil mind. What is it to me if 
my neighbour's grandfather were a Syrian, or his 
grandmother illegitimate, or that another is indebted 
five thousand pounds, or whether his wife be expen- 
sive? But commonly curious persons, or (as the 
Apostle's phrase is) busy-bodies, are not solicitous or 
inquisitive into the beauty and order of a well go- 

* Jeremy Taylor's Holy Living, 



45 

verned family, or after the virtues of an excellent 
person ; but if there be any thing- for which men 
keep locks, and bars, and porters, things that blush 
to see the light, and are either shameful in manners, 
or private in nature, these things are their care and 
their business. But if great things will satisfy our 
inquiry, the courses of the sun ana moon, the spots in 
their faces, the firmament of heaven and the sup- 
posed orbs, the ebbing and flowing- of the sea, are 
work enough for us : or, if this be not, let him tell 
me whether the number of the stars be even or odd, 
and when they began to be so ; since some ages have 
discovered new stars, which the former knew not, 
but might have seen if they had been where now they 
are fixed. If these be too troublesome, search lower, 
and tell me why this turf this year brings forth a daisy, 
and the next year a plantane ; why the apple bears 
its seed in his heart, and wheat bears it in his head ; 
let him tell why a graft, taking nourishment from a 
crab-stock, shall have a fruit more noble than its 
nurse and parent; let him say why the best of oil is 
at the top, the best of wine in the middle, and the best 
of honey at the bottom, otherwise than it is in some 
liquors that are thinner, and in some that are thicker. 
But these things are not such as please busy-bodies; 
they must feed upon tragedies, and stories of misfor- 
tunes and crimes ; and yet, tell them ancient stories 
of the ravishment of chaste maidens, or the debauch* 



46 

orient of nations, or the extreme poverty of learned 
persons, or the persecutions of the old saints, or the 
changes of government, and the sad accidents hap- 
pening in royal families among the Arsacidx, the 
Cxsars, the Ptolemies, these were enough to scratch 
the itch of knowing sad stories ; but unless you teli 
them something sad and new, something that is done 
within the bounds of their knowledge or relation, it 
seems todious and unsatisfying; which shows plainly 
it is an evil spirit : envy and idleness married toge- 
ther and begot curiosity. Therefore Plutarch rarely 
well compares curious and inquisitive ears to the ex- 
ecrable gates of cities, out of which only malefactors 
and hangmen, and tragedies pass — nothing is chaste 
or holy. If a physician should go from house to house 
unsent for, and inquire what woman hath a cancer 
in her bowels, or what man a fistula in his colic-gut, 
though he could pretend to cure it, he would be al- 
most as unwelcome as the disease itself: and there- 
fore it is inhumane to inquire after crimes and dis- 
asters without pretence of amending them, but only 
to discover them. We are not angry with search- 
ers and publicans when they look only on public 
merchandise, but when they break open trunks, 
and pierce vessels, and unrip packs, and open sealed 
letters. 

" Curiosity is the direct incontinency of the spirit ; 
and adultery itself, in its principle, is many times no- 



47 

thing' but a curious inquisition after, and envying of 
another man's inclosed pleasures: and there have 
been many refused fairer objects, that they might 
ravish an inclosed woman from her retirement and 
single possessor. But these inquisitions are seldom 
without danger — never without baseness ; they are 
neither just, nor honest, nor delightful, and very of- 
ten useless to the curious inquirer. For men stand 
upon their guards against them, as they secure their 
meat against harpies and cats, laying all their coun- 
sels and secrets out of their way ; or as men clap 
their garments close about them when the searching 
and saucy winds would discover their nakedness : as 
knowing that what men willingly hear, they do wil- 
lingly speak of. Knock, therefore, at the door be- 
fore you enter upon your neighbour's privacy ; and 
remember that there is no difference between enter- 
ing into his house, and looking into it." 



4S 



NATIONAL CHARACTER. 



Paris, 1815. 

I was sitting one day in company with a French- 
man, a Spaniard, an Italian, an Englishman, and a 
German, when a conversation began upon the merits 
of their respective nations. As I found the argu- 
ment growing warm, especially on the part of the 
Frenchman, who was pouring a shower of small talk 
upon the Englishman, and of the Italian, who was 
near touching the ceiling with his hands, in order to 
invoke the vengeance of Heaven upon the German, 
I bethought me of a method to temper the discussion ; 
I proposed that each should set forth his reasons for 
preferring his own nation in a continued speech, and 
that I, as an impartial hearer, should be the judge 
amongst them. My proposal was soon accepted ; 
but harmony had like to have been again destroyed 
by a dispute who was to begin. The Frenchman 
talked loud, the German muttered, and the Italian 



49 

spouted, Amidst the confusion of their voices, I 
could now and then distinguish the words, comedie % 
boulevards, esprit, empfmdungcn, genuss, bequem* 
lichkeit) cantatrice, capo d' ) opera, cosa superba, &c. ; 
only the Spaniard and the Englishman looked upon 
the contest with seeming indifference and contempt ; 
at last I succeeded in stopping them, and prevailed 
on them to speak in the following order : 

I addressed myself first to the Spaniard, who was 
by no means a Liberal, and said, " Tell me why you 
consider your own nation as the wisest, the happiest, 
and the best ?•" — he answered, *' I consider the 
two former epithets as entirely superfluous; for if 
we are the best, we must be the happiest ; and if we 
are the happiest and best, we must be the wisest. 

"Now, I believe, there is no man who performs, 
so well as the Spaniard, his duty to God, and to his 
neighbour. He worships in the most exact, and 
even the most splendid manner, the Divine Creator, 
the Redeemer, the Holy Ghost, and the Blessed Vir- 
gin, and he does not forget to pray for the interces- 
sion of the least of the Saints whom the church has 
admitted ; he is loyal to his king, to the utmost stretch 
of Christian patience and submission ; he is kind and 
charitable to his fellow creatures, helping the needy, 
and feeding the hungry; he reaps the reward of his 
good actions in a perpetual cheerfulness. Cheerful- 
ness is the habit of the good ; gayety is but the delK 
5 



50 

riura of the wicked. Nor let it be supposed, as many 
declamatory writers have asserted, that the Inquisi- 
tion has diminished the happiness of Spain. It is 
only through the acts of the Inquisition that the 
Spanish people have been preserved in an unanimous 
faith. Now, even granting", for argument's sake, 
that other religions may be equally good for a future 
life, there is nothing which tends so much to union 
and harmony in the present, as worship at the same 
altar, reliance upon the same means of salvation, ob- 
ligation to the same duties, and hope of the same final 
reward. Much has been said of the victims of the 
Inquisition. The care which that holy tribunal em- 
ployed not to hurt the reputation of families, by pub- 
lishing their proceedings, has served to spread a cla- 
mour against them ; for that which is secret, is al- 
ways magnified by report. It is thus that fame re- 
venges herself on those who wish to keep her out. 
But, in reality, are the victims of the Inquisition to 
be compared with those of the day of St. Barthele- 
mi, and the revocation of the edict of Nantz ? Such 
are the effects of admitting the infection, and then 
endeavouring to stop it ; or are they to be compared 
with the thousands who suffered in England under 
Henry VIII., Edward VI., and Elizabeth? Such 
are the consequences of admitting, without control, 
the preachers of heresy and schism. 



51 

* 4 If we do not want the religious toleration of 
England, still less do we stand in need of her politi- 
cal liberty. The sun which favours our country with 
its propitious influence, gives us enjoyment sufficient 
without seeking to busy ourselves in the affairs of 
government. Liberty is, in fact, a poor substitute 
for a fine climate. The people of the South only re- 
quire the presence of that power which raises the 
corn — which ripens the grape, in order to be satisfied 
with their position. To ask if they are happy, you 
need only ask if they exist. But with the people of 
the North it is necessary to dig mines, to hew down 
forests, to build houses, to obtain, in a small space of 
a few feet, that warm, comfortable sensation, which 
a southern peasant feels in the large mansion of na- 
ture ; he is obliged to look for some artificial source 
of pleasure, to intoxicate himself with the poison of 
distilled spirits, or the tumult of political contention. 
We court no such advantages. To those who love 
care we leave the trouble of governing; and we 
should think it as absurd to insist upon electing de- 
puties, and making laws, because we have the right 
to do it, as to carry burdens because we have backs 
capable of supporting them.* Having said what is 
sufficient to convince all men of sense, I will not 



* How much mortified this gentleman must be at the late 
Revolution. — En. 



dilate upon the beauty of our country ; the majesty 
of Grenada, the splendour of Seville, the fertility of 
Valencia. You know our land, and can do justice to 
it." Having- thus spoken, the Spaniard folded his 
arms in his cloak, which he always wore, even in 
France ; and I observed he never listened to a word 
that was spoken afterwards. 

Having put the same question to the Italian that I 
had addressed to the Spaniard, he answered to the 
following purport : — That what had been just said 
concerning the pleasure derived from climate, ap- 
plied with equal force to Italy, and set their two 
countries above all the rest of Europe. " Indeed," 
he said, •' the native of London, or Hamburgh, can- 
not conceive, unless he travels to our land, the plea- 
sure to be derived from the touch of a cisalpine at* 
mosphere. Our nerves seem to swell and extend 
themselves to receive the delightful sensation ; our 
eyes dwell without fatigue or pain upon the beau- 
ties of a rich and warm landscape ; even the voice 
maintains its clearness only in the air which the sun 
has blessed. But if we had merely this advantage, 
we should rival, and not precede Spain in happiness. 
It is to another circumstance that Italy owes her 
glory, her occupation, her delight: — to taste. With 
justice it has been said, that this is the only pursuit 
of which the pleasures far out-balance the pains. A 
man may meet with an unfaithful mistress, or be re- 



53 

jected by an ungrateful sovereign, but nothing 
obliges him to gaze at a bad picture, or dwell upon 
a disproportioned building. A great work of art 
may be said to be the most sucGessful result of hu- 
man effort : a fine statue requires as much genius in 
the conception as the most difficult problem of New- 
ton ; it demands as much skill in the execution as 
the formation of a time-piece; and when finished, it 
attracts the admiration, and gratifies the senses of 
thousands of spectators for thousands of years. It 
is, I hope, needless for them to prove that Italy ex- 
cels all other nations in this respect. The sublimity 
of Michael Angelo, the grace and expression of Ra- 
phael, in fine, the innumerable merits of our great 
architects, sculptors, and painters, are not to be in- 
sulted by a comparison with the smoky buildings of 
London, the monuments in the Musee Francois, or 
the lusty goddesses of the Belgian painters. Give 
me the portico of the Pantheon, and the interior of 
St. Peters, the Transfiguration, the Communion of 
St. Jerome, the St. Michael, the St. Peter and St. 
Paul, the St. Peter Martyr, the Moses of Michael 
Angelo, the Venus and Apollo of the ancients ; give 
me, above all, the music which our admirable Pae- 
siello, Cimarosa, and Rossini have produced, and I 
will not yield the palm of happiness to any part of 
Europe. For the prize of wisdom, too, I think we 
may lay a fair claim. The greatest natural philoso- 



54 

pliers, the most skilful negotiators, the most gifted 
poets, own Italy as their birth-place. The discove- 
ry of the laws of motion, of the resistance of the air, 
of the barometer, of the telescope, and lately of Gal- 
va.iism ; the knowledge of a fourth quarter of the 
globe ; the history of Italy, of Florence, of the Coun- 
cil of Trent, and of the Civil Wars of France, the 
Inferno the Goffredo, and the Orlando Furioso, form 
a portion of the share which Italy has contributed to 
the civilization of Europe. It is for you, Sir," he 
concluded, turning to the German, " to prove that 
the univ ersities of Heidelberg and Halle have done 
more.'" 

The German, though he seemed to be smoking his 
pipe with great apathy, was not insensible to the re- 
proach; and, like a skilful general, immediately 
changed the field of action. "I can find but one 
fault with your discourse, Signor," he replied ; " it 
is, that you have entirely omitted to answer the prin- 
cipal question, namely, why you consider your na- 
tion as the best ? To this interrogatory, I can reply, 
with a safe conscience, that the Germans are the 
best people, because they do not assassinate secretly, 
or murder openly ; because they are honest in their 
dealings and pay their debts, whether to government 
or i vividuals, with conscience-calming punctuality. 
From Hamburgh to Clagenfurt, there is scarcely a 
village which has not its schoolmaster, whilst the 



55 

capital of a province is almost ignorant of the name 
of executioner. Our fruit hangs on the trees by the 
road-side without being touched by any one ; and 
the streets of our largest towns become still as sleep 
early in the night. Other nations, indeed, may boast 
of great discoveries in science, and of a rapid pro- 
gress in political philosophy ; but we furnished them 
with the means. They have sown a great part and 
reaped the whole; but we gave the field and invent- 
ed the plough. It is to us that they are indebted for 
the art of printing, without which, knowledge could 
not have moved ; and for the Reformation, without 
which it would have been arrested in its march. In 
modern times, too, our literature has taken a far-ex- 
tended springing leap, which leaving behind it the 
long-past glories of Italy and France, place it by the 
side of England in the race towards the spedtator- 
girt, laurel-surrounded goal, which is always in the. 
horizon of those bright geniuses, who have a heart- 
convulsing desire of present immortality, and a thou- 
sand-man power of intellectual sensation." 

These last words caused a pause : even the French- 
man took a pinch of snuff, and sneezed twice before 
he would begin. At last he started with such volu- 
bility in praise of France, and of Paris, that I am 
quite incapable of representing his harangue. He 
gave the first ten minutes to those who had spoken 
before him, and tried to prove that France excelled 



56 

them in the very particulars on which they had in- 
sisted. He said there was no climate in Europe 
equal to that of the south of France, and that even 
at Paris the winter was over in February. As for 
the fine arts, he quoted Lalande, who had spent se- 
veral years in, and written several volumes upon 
Italy, and who maintains there is nothing to be seen 
there equal to what is to be found in France. In 
modern times he thought it beyond a question, that 
the French painters were the first in the world, 
which, however, was not to be wondered at, as the 
English had not at all turned their attention to the 
fine arts. The works of David, he conceived, express 
a sublimity to which Raphael, born in a barbarous 
age, never could attain ; in music, the French now 
far excelled the Italians. As for virtue, which his 
German friend had introduced somewhat malapro- 
pos into the discussion, he, like the Delphine of Ma- 
dame de Stael, defined it to consist in a succession of 
generous impulses. And these impulses acted no 
where with such vigour, as in the country where an 
officer sacrificed his life, in order to give the alarm 
to his regiment, and a father went cheerfully to exe- 
cution to save the life of his son. Having thrown out 
these remarks with an air degage, he put on a more 
Socratic look, as he addressed himself to the English- 
man. " It is with your nation that ours is most fit to 
be compared. In England, and in France, Us Iwnieres 



57 

are generally spread like the rays of the sun ; in other, 
countries they are scattered like flashes of lightning". 
But it is more especially in French that elementary 
books in every art and science are written ; it is in 
French that the reading of the world, profound or 
trivial, is carried on. If a mathematician wishes to 
read the deepest book of science, he studies the 
Mecanique Celeste; if a Russian nobleman desires 
to learn what is meant by the words feeling or wit, 
he takes hp the tragedies of Racine, or the tales of 
Voltaire, and learns to smile and to cry like a civili- 
zed being. Even the discoveries of your great New- 
ton have been brought to perfection by D'Alembert, 
and Laplace; and in pure mathematics you have 
not for a long time produced an equal to Lagrange. 
Impartial judges (bowing to me) will agree, that in 
the most profound and abstrect of human sciences, 
the people whom you treat as frivolous and superfi- 
cial, have gone far beyond you. Your mathemati- 
cians of Oxford and Cambridge, are not even ac- 
quainted with that form of the calculus which we 
use for our investigations. If we excel you in ab- 
stract knowledge, there is still less doubt that we are 
superior in practical happiness. For happiness con- 
sists in nothing so much as in a temper of mind fitted 
for pleasure, or, to use a chemical phrase, in having 
a capacity for enjoyment. A man may satisfy him- 
self of this, by travelling the same road when he is 



58 

gay, and when he is gloomy. In the first case, the 
country will appear to him smiling beautiful, or sub- 
lime ; in the second, it will seem tame, dull, or sa- 
vage. Now, the disposition of a Frenchman, is to 
see every thing en beau. I remember being in a 
wretched prison, guarded by Spaniards, who, any 
day in the week, might have taken a fancy to cut 
our throats ; yet we laughed all day, and acted plays 
in the evening. Englishmen would have cut holes in 
the wall, and have been shot in the attempt to es- 
cape. If we know how to bear adversity, we also 
know how to enjoy prosperity. What in the world 
so good as the Restaurateurs and the Theatres of 
Paris ? What country can compare with France 
for wines, for dress, for dancing, and for plays ? 

" You will affirm, that these sensual and market- 
able enjoyments, destroy the taste for domestic hap- 
piness ; but it is not so : no people are more attach- 
ed than the French to their near relations ; and 
England cannot easily produce a mother more at- 
tached than Madame de Sevigne. It is the same 
with all the domestic relations ; and it is sufficient to 
go to the cimetiere of Pere la Chaise, to be convin- 
ced how true the affection which the mothers, and 
sons, and sisters, of France, have for each other. 
How simple, and yet how tender the inscriptions 
upon the tombs ! There the sister goes to renew 
the tender recollection of her sister, and a son to 



place a garland over the grave of his mother. With 
you, the dead are never mentioned, never visited, 
and, I believe, seldom remembered. With the kind- 
est feelings to the relations, the French, it is true, 
do not think it inconsistent to mix the sociability of 
a larger circle ; and they endeavour to be happy 
through the short period of existence allotted them ; 
whilst the English lose half their lives in becoming 
acquainted with those who are jumbled into the 
same half-century as themselves." 

The Englishman began with the most diffident air, 
by refusing any comparison with the Spaniards, the 
Italians, or the Germans. The first, he said, had no 
political liberty, the second had not even independ- 
ence, and the Germans could scarcely be said to 
possess a classical literature ; without every one of 
these advantages no nation could claim the pre-emi- 
nence. It was now his duty to show that the Eng- 
lish nation was the wisest, the happiest, and the best. 
The only mode of estimating the rank of England 
in science and literature, was to enumerate the men 
she had produced. Whatever claims the Parisians 
(for Paris was France) might have to distinction in 
the annals of modern science, they would not dispute 
that Bacon was the first theoretical teacher, and 
Newton the greatest practical discoverer of sound 
philosophy. Nor could England be said to be infe- 
rior to any in the science of the day ; namely, che- 



60 

mistry ; when Priestley and Cavendish made discove- 
ries contemporary with those of Lavoisier, and Davy 
had pushed his researches to a distance which none 
of his rivals or fellow-labourers had reached. 

" If we turn from physical science, and look to 
history, which joining the investigation of fact, with 
the exercise of moral judgment, and the use Oi a 
cultivated style, seems to form the link between the 
exact sciences, and polite literature, we shall find 
that Hume is the most profound, and Gibbon the 
most learned of modern historians. I will not com- 
pare them with De Thou or Bapin, D'Anquetil or 
Lacretelle ; but I will assert, without hesitation, 
that they have far surpassed Davila, Guicciardin, 
Mariaua, and Schiller. 

" In the region of poetry we fear no comparison 
with France ; in fact, except the tragedies of Ra- 
cine, two or three oi Voltaire, and some passages of 
ComeiHe, France has no poetry of the higher class; 
but even in those, have they any thing so sublime as 
the conceptions of Milton ? Have they any charac- 
ters so true, or an invention so various, as that of 
Shakspeare ? 

" If we look at the present state of literature, our 
superiority is still more apparent ; the six poets of 
our day have no parallels in France. 

" I have now to speak of the happiness of Eng- 
land. Good Heavens, what a fertile theme ' N© 



61 

cold dissertation on the advantages of liberty, no 
detailed statement of the blessings derived from in- 
dustry, can give an inhabitant of tne Continent an 
idea of the well beiog and prosperity of our island ; 
every man can there think, and speak, and write as 
he pleases ; no previous censorship of the press pre- 
vents the general communication of facts and of 
ideas ; truth is not squeezed under the hat of a car- 
dinal, or screwed by the vice of an officer of police, 
but carried into the broad day-light, and appreciated 
by the general judgment of enlightened men. 

" Nor have we stained the cause of liberty by in- 
numerable murders and proscriptions ; our revolu- 
tion was fruitful in great qualities and great virtues ; 
it produced but few crimes. 

" Perhaps of all the advantages our constitution 
has procured to us, none is more considerable than 
the freedom of industry. 

" The consequence is, a perfection in the arts of 
life, a solidity and completeness of happy comforts, 
which one of your countrymen," said hefcto the 
Frenchman, " called La poesie du bienttre. The 
English shopkeeper has ten times the comfort of the 
Spanish grandee, and is twenty times as independent 
as the Roman cardinal. 

" Nor have the English been less remarkrble in 
foreign war ; during the late war they gained by sea 
the battles of Camperdown, St. Vincent, Aboukir, 
6 



62 

Copenhagen, and Trafalgar." — " Oh, but then/* 
said the Frenchman, " your nation are islanders, and 
cannot cope with us on the land." — " Talavera, and 
Barrosa, Salamanca, Vittoria, and Waterloo, are the 
answers to this objection." 

When all the parties had been heard, I said, with 
the gravest face, and the most solemn tone I could 
put on, that I would read over my notes, and give 
my judgment another day. I did not say, however, 
that I would give the cause another hearing, as they 
do in the English chancery court, although it might 
have been done, in this case, without costing the 
parties a hundred pounds a-piece. 



03 



LITERARY TASTE. 



Milan, 1818. 

From the beginning of literary history, no dispute 
seems to have been more eloquently maintained, or 
more often renewed, than that between the admirers 
of great but irregular genius, and the pupils of ex- 
alted but chastened talent. Amongst ancient au- 
thors, the contest has chiefly turned upon the merits 
of Homer and Virgil, so that the partisans of the 
two opinions may be styled, for the sake of distinc- 
tion, Homerians and Virgilians. The former adore 
that which is grand, original, and surprising ; the 
latter delight in that which is beautiful, harmonious, 
and correct. Amongst the moderns, the two parties 
have 'found frequent occasions to display tljeir dif- 
ferences. In Italy, they have compared Ariosto and 
Tasso, and have lately renewed the contest in a dif- 
ferent shape, under the titles of Classici and Roman* 
tici; in England^ they have opened the lists for 
Pryden and Pope ; and in Germany a great schism 



64 

exists to this day between the followers of the Eng- 
lish and the French school of tragedy. But however 
acute the weapons, however sharp the rencoDtres in 
this controversy may be, there is little chance that 
victory will entirely declare for either of the com- 
batants. There is a difference in the constitution 
of mind of the respective parties. Those whose 
feelings are bold, whose desire of novelty is insatia- 
ble, whose adoration of genius is unbounded, will 
always be Homerians ; whilst those in whom the 
love of order is stronger than the conception of ex- 
cellence, and delicacy of taste more prominent than 
enthusiasm, will as certainly become Virgilians. 
Hence, with some knowledge of the person, we might 
easily predict what would be his opinions. Thu£, 
Voltaire, whose opinions of taste were drawn from 
the writers of the age of Louis XIV., gave the palm 
to Virgil against Homer; whilst Mr. Fox, whose 
vigorous mind delighted to wander through a maze 
of invention, allotted a rank to the Greek poet far 
higher than that which he gave to the Roman. Thus, 
Galileo, being an inventor, whose thoughts require 
variety and excitement in his reading consonant to 
his own pursuits, naturally prefers Ariosto to Tasso ; 
whilst Metastasio, whose works are the result of la- 
bour and polish, declares his predilection in favour 
of the author of the Jerusalem. Reversing the rule, 
we may form some estimate of a person by his taste ; 



$ 



and this rule will apply to the line arts as well as to 
poetry ; for, except the servile herd who only imitate 
admiration, every one looks at a work of art, not to 
gain instruction, which is new, as in a work of sci- 
ence, but to excite a feeling- he has previously enter- 
tained. Thus, he who delights in the Aurora of 
Guido, admires expression, dignity, and grace ; but 
he who chooses Titian and Paul Veronese for his" 
standard of perfection, is fond of rich colours and 
varied groupes. Those who have a warm admiration 
of the Greek temples will be, in all tilings, lovers of 
simplicity ; and those who, in their hearts, prefer the 
churches of Bernini, are clearly of the same class 
with the boys who run after the Lord Mayor's coach. 
The followers of Homer, Dante, Ariosto, and Shak« 
speare, will be men of bold character, and a spring- 
ing and soaring fancy ; whilst the partizans of Vir- 
gil, Tasso, and Racine, will be persons of refined 
discrimination, and little inventive genius. The 
former are fit to take Troy, like the Achilles of Ho- 
mer ; and the latter to escape from it with honour. 
like the iEneas of Virgil. 



6* 



66 



ON FIELD-SPORTS. 



rt Image of war without its guilt." 

SOMERVILLE* 



London, 1819. 

It is mentioned somewhere, that Dr. Paley, who 
was very fond of fishing, said, that if he was called 
upon to state the cause of his pleasure in it, he would 
be unable to do it. Yet it is not difficult to state the 
elements which compose the pleasure of fishing — the 
exercise of skill and power, and that degree of un- 
certainty and expectation which creates an interest, 
are all contained in fishing. 

It would be more difficult to account entirely for 
the pleasure of hunting. The skill is displayed by 
the hounds, and the power by the horse ; the death of 
the animal is no object, and the whole pleasure is in 
the pursuit itself: and yet there is something in the 
cry of hounds, the rapidity of motion, the excite- 



67 



ment of air, and company, and emulation, which 
raises the spirits to a degree that hardiy any thing 
else can do. It would appear as if the chace were 
natural to man. 

There are many wise and excellent persons who 
think it wanton cruelty to indulge in any field-sports. 
If the conjecture hazarded above, that the pursuit of 
wild animals is part of our nature, has any founda- 
tion., nothing can be said against hunting by man in a 
savage state : and I know not why that should not be 
the case. A pike pursues a roach, and sometimes 
bites off a part without killing it ; the stoat pursues 
the rabbit for half a day in the most regular manner, 
sure of sucking its blood at last : even the earth-worm 
is a beast of pray. Why, then, should not man be 
allowed by his Creator to pursue certain animals 
which are his food ? But it is said, that, whatever 
may have been the case formerly in a savage state, 
field-sports are no longer pursued from hunger or 
necessity, but for pleasure and diversion. Foxes, as 
it is well known, are preserved only for the pleasure 
of hunting them. This is very true; but does any 
one think it would be any advantage to these ani- 
mals that hunting should be abolished ?■ The imme- 
diate consequence would be the destruction of all 
the foxes as a noxious race Let us suppose a fox 
endowed, as he often is in fable, with the faculty of 
speech : he might then address Gray, or Cowper, or 



as 

Gilbert Wakefield, in these terms : — " Formerly we 
were allowed six months in the year to gain our live*- 
lihood, and bring' up our families in quiet ; many of 
us, it is true, were destroyed in the course of the 
winter, but that was the fortune of war, and the 
enemy did not beat up our quarters above half-a- 
dozen timos in the whole year : upon the whole, we 
lived a pleasant life ; short and disturbed, perhaps, 
yet safe from trap or gun, and in the midst of plenty ; 
but now that you have interfered, with your humani- 
ty, there has come out a general order to shoot and 
destroy us, wherever we may be found, till our whole 
ancient family is exterminated ! And this is out of 
yourspecial kindness !" 

The same thing might be said of pheasants and 
hares, which certainly would not be in such plenty, 
were they not preserved for shooting. Whenever 
I see a wood full of hares and pheasants in summer, 
I rejoice that, for the sake of two days' carnage in 
winter, men have consented to give life and enjoy- 
ment to so many beautiful and peaceful animals. I 
have said nothing here of the obvious topics of the 
benefits of field-sports to the body and mind of man, 
of the health and manliness they bestow, or the im» 
mense advantages of the country life they produce. 
I wished to show that, even as a benefit to the ani- 
mals themselves, they ought to be encourage^ 



AN AGREEABLE MAN,— SOCIETY IN 
LONDON. 



London, 1819. 

What is meant by an agreeable man ? 

In Spain an agreeable man is he who is pos- 
sessed of a good person, and an incessant flow of 
talk. The science of conversation is there in its 
infancy, and no distinction is made between him who 
talks much and him who talks well. The leading 
topic of bel esprit is women ; and the language itself 
is so formed as to confine praise or blame entirely 
to their bodily qualities. Es buena moza, literally 
"she is a good girl," means she is a pretty girl. 
Tiene merito, " she has merit," means she has some 
good points in her face or figure. Beside being 
able to decide the proper degree of merit which 
every woman possesses, the Spanish agreeable man 
is able to cover obscenity with the veil which is just 
thick enough to make it admissible in good company. 



7© 

though even that is sometimes thrown aside like 
those which are worn on the Alameda. From this 
source he derives the principal fund of his conversa- 
tion, and makes amends for a total ignorance on eve*- 
ry kind of literature and politics. But then, he also 
knows the plays which are to be acted for the next 
month, and can tell, to a tittle, if a single indecent 
posture has been omitted in the fandango. 

The agreeable man in Germany is quite a differ- 
ent sort of person. He is a gentleman who endea- 
vours to make wit and gallantry after the most ap- 
proved models of the age of Louis XIV. But his 
specific gravity being much greater than that of the 
French nation, he is, in fact, as little like M. de 
Coulanges or St. Evremont as can well be imagined. 
His little anecdotes are drawn from the Roman his- 
tory, or, at best, from the Seven Years' War ; his 
remarks and observations are conscientiously sin- 
cere, but insufferably dull ; and his wit always dis- 
poses to melancholy. 

In Italy an agreeable man is a much pleasanter 
person ; his manners are particularly civil ; he often 
has a good taste in the fine arts and in polite litera- 
ture, and, perhaps, an agreeable talent for music ; 
but there is a feebleness and effeminacy in his tone 
of thinking, which finally wearies ; and his conver- 
sation is the pace of a manege horse, trained till he 
has lost all freedom tf action. 



71 

Yet, it must be owned, that there are a great 
many young men who are exceptions to this rule ; 
it is easy to see, however, that they are exceptions. 
Their long dishevelled hair, their wild rolling eyes, 
their vehement action, their loud harangues in so- 
ciety, their unusual language, and more unusual 
opinions, show at once that they are not formed after 
the general rule of national character. 

If we go from Italy to England, we shall find that 
the agreeable man gets more reputation, more eating, 
and more drinking, in return for his talk, than any 
where else. He is perpetually invited to dinner, 
where from ten to five-and-twenty people are invited 
expressly to meet him ; and, after all, it often hap- 
pens that he is sullen or unwell, and will not speak 
a word from the beginning of dinner till the end. 
But if he should happen to be in spirits, he often 
talks so loud, or so disputatiously, that you are 
forced to bow to his opinions till after coffee. But 
if a rival wit has been asked to meet him, there ge- 
nerally arises a furious contest for superiority ; each 
attacks his opponent with arguments too important 
for the hour of digestion. 

France, perhaps, affords the best models of an 
agreeable man. In them we see the most refined 
politeness towards others, mixed with a most perfect 
confidence in themselves — a sprightliness which en- 
livens all around, and produces as much light by re? 



72 

flection as by radiation — a skill in placing every 
topic in the situation which alone can make it amu- 
sing in conversation — a grace in treating the most 
frivolous matters, a lightness in touching the most 
serious, and a quickness in passing from one, to the 
other, which to all other Europeans must seem quite 
unattainable. They console themselves by saying 
the French are frivolous ; by which. they- mean that 
they interest themselves in little frivolous concerns ; 
but they forget to mention that they are the. same 
people who marched into Lisbon and Moscow, and 
perfected the discoveries of Newton. 

Such are the prominent characters in the conver- 
sation of their respective countries. But it may 
happen, that, although individuals may exist in a 
society, endowed with every power of entertaining 
and enlightening, yet the forms of society may be 
such that it is very difficult to obtain the full advan- 
tage of their superior qualities. This difficulty as the 
misfortune of London, where there are more men of 
cultivated understanding, of refined wit, and literary 
or political eminence, ttian in any metropolis of Eu- 
rope. Yet h is so contrived, that there isfittle free- 
dom, little intimacy, and little ease, in London so- 
ciety. " To love some persons very much, and see 
often those that I love," says the eld Duchess of 
M?rl borough, u is the greatest happiness I can en~ 
^*/. ,? But in London it is equally difficult to get to 



73 

love any body very much, or to see often those that 
we have loved before. There are such numbers of 
acquaintances, such a succession of engagements, 
that the town resembles Vauxhall, where the dearest 
friends may walk round and round all night without 
ever meeting. If you see at dinner a person whose 
manners and conversation please you, you may wish 
in vain to become more intimate ; for the chance is, 
that you will not meet so as to converse a second 
time for three months, when the dice-box of society 
may, perhaps, turn up again the same numbers. Not 
that it is to be inferred that you may not barely see 
the same features again ; it is possible that you may 
catch a glimpse of them on the other side of St. 
James's Street, or see them near to you at a crowded 
rout, without a possibility of approaching. Hence it 
is, that those who live in London are totally indiffe- 
rent to one another ; the waves follow so quick that 
any vacancy is immediately filled up, and the want 
is not perceived. At the same* time, the well-bred 
civility of modern times, and the example of some 
" very popular people," have introduced a shaking of 
hands, a pretended warmth, a sham cordiality, into 
the manners of the cold and the warm alike — the 
dear friend, and the acquaintance of yesterday. 
Hence, we hear continually such conversations as 
the following : — "Ah! how d'ye do? I'm delighted 
to see you ! How is Mrs. M— — ■ ?"— " She is very 
7 



74 

well, thank you." — "Has she any more children?" 
— " Any more ! I have only been married three 
months, f see you are talking of my former wife — 
she has been dead these three years." — Or " My 
dear friend, how d'ye do, — you have been out of 
town some time — where have you been — in Nor- 
folk?" — "No, I have been two years in India." — 

Thus, ignorant of one another's interest and occu- 
pations, the friendships of London contain nothing" 
more tender than a visiting-card. Nor is it much 
better, — indeed it is much worse, — if you renounce 
the world, and determine to live only with your re- 
lations and. nearest connections : if you go to see 
them at one o'clock they are not up ; at two the room 
is full of indifferent acquaintance, who can talk over 
the ball of the night before, and of course are sooner 
listened to than yourself; at three they are gone 
shopping ; at four they are in the Park ; at five and 
at six they are dining with two dozen friends ; at 
nine and ten the same ; at eleven they are dressing 
for the ball ; and at twelve, when you are going to 
bed, they are gone into society for the evening. 
Thus you are left in solitude : you soon begin again 
to try the ^orld ; — let us see what it produces. 

The first inconvenience of a London life, is the 
late hour of dinner. To pass the day impransus._ 
and then to sit down to a great dinner at eight 
o'clock, is entirely against the first dictates of com- 



7.5 

snon sense, and common stomachs. Some learned 
persons, indeed, endeavour to support this practice 
by precedent, and quote the Roman supper; but 
those suppers were at three o'clock in the afternoon, 
and ought to be a subject of contempt, instead of 
imitation, in Grosvenor Square. Women, however* 
are not so irrational as men, in London, and gene- 
rally sit down to a substantial luncheon, at three or 
four : if men would do the same, the meal at eight 
might be lightened of many of its weighty dishes, 
and conversation would be no loser ; for it is not to 
be concealed, that conversation suffers great inter- 
ruption from the manner in which English dinners 
are managed : first the host and hostess (or her un- 
fortunate co-adjutor) are employed during three 
parts of dinner, in doing the work of the servants, 
helping fish, or carving large pieces of venison to 
twenty hungry souls, to the total loss of the host's 
powers of amusement, and the entire disfigurement 
of the fair hostess's face. Much time is also lost by 
the attention every one is obliged to pay, in order to 
find out (which he can never do if he is short-sighted) 
what dishes are at the other end of the table ; and if 
a guest wishes for a glass oi wine, he must peep 
through the Apollos and Cupids of the plateau, in 
order to find some one to drink with him ; otherwise 
he must wait till some one asks him, which will pro- 
bably happen in succession, so that after having had 



7& 

no wine for half an hour, he will have to drink five 
glasses in five minutes. Convenience teaches that 
the best manner of enjoying society at dinner, is to 
leave every thing to servants that servants can do ; 
so that you may have no farther trouble than to ac- 
cept of the dishes that are offered to you, and to drink 
at your own time, of the wines which are handed 
round. An English dinner, on the contrary, seems 
to presume before-hand on the silence, dulness, and 
stupidity of the guests, and to have provided little 
interruptions, like the jerks which the chaplain gives 
to the Archbishop, to prevent his going to sleep dur- 
ing sermon. 

Some time after dinner comes the time of going to 
a ball, or a rout ; but this is sooner said than done ; 
it often requires as much time to go from St James's 
Square to Cleveland Row, as to go from London to 
Hounslow. It would require volumes to describe 
the disappointment which occurs on arriving in the 
brilliant mob of a ball-room. Sometimes, as it has 
been before said, a friend is seen squeezed like your- 
self, at another end of the room, without a possibility 
of your communicating except by signs ; and as the 
whole arrangement of the society is regulated by 
mechanical pressure, you may happen to be pushed 
against those to whom you do not wish to speak, 
whether bores, slight acquaintances, or determined 
enemies. Confined by the crowd, and stifled by the 



77 

heat, and dazzled by the light, all powers of intellect 
are lost ; wit loses its point, and sagacity its obser- 
vation ; indeed, the limbs are so crushed, and the 
tongue so parched, that, except particularly well- 
dressed ladies, all are in the case of the traveller, 
Dr. Clarke, when he says, in the plains of Syria, 
that some might blame him for not making moral re- 
flections on the state of the country ; but that he 
must own the heat quite deprived him of all power 
of thought. 

Hence it is, that the conversation you hear around 
you, is generally nothing more than, u Have you 
been here long ?" " Have you been at Mrs. Hot- 
room's ?" *' Are you going to Lady Deathsqueeze's ?" 
Hence, too, Madame de Stael said, very justly, to 
an Englishman, " Dans vos routs le corps fait plus 
de frais que l'esprit." But even if there are per- 
sons of a constitution robust enough to talk, they 
yet do not dare to do so, as twenty heads are forced 
into the compass of one square foot ; and even when, 
to your great delight, you see a person to whom you 
have much to say, and, by fair means or foul, elbows 
and toes, knees and shoulders, have got near them, 
they often dismiss you with shaking you by the hand* 

and saying, " My dear Mr. how do you do ?" 

and then continue a conversation with a person 

whose ear is three inches nearer. At one o'clock, 

however, the crowd diminishes ; and if you are not 

7* 



78 

tired by the five or six hours of playing at compan} , 
which you have already had, you may be very com- 
fortable for the rest of the evening. 

It has been said very justly of science, that the 
profound discoveries of the greatest philosophers of 
one age become the elements of knowledge to the 
youth of the next. It is nearly the reverse in con- 
versation. The anecdotes which form the buz of 
card parties and dinner parties in one century, are 
in the lapse of a hundred years, and sometimes less, 
transplanted into quarto volumes, and go to increase 
the stock of learning of the most grave and studious 
persons in the nation ; a story repeated by the 
Duchess of Portsmouth's waiting* woman to Lord 
Bochester's valet, forms a subject of investigation 
for* a philosophical historian ; and you may hear an 
assembly of scholars and authors discussing the va- 
lidity of a piece of scandal invented by a maid of 
honour more than two centuries ago, and repeated 
to an obscure writer by Queen Elizabeth's house- 
keeper. 

The appetite for remains of all kinds, has certain- 
ly increased of late to a most surprising extent ; 
every thing which belongs to a great man is eagerly 
bunted out, and constantly published. If Madame 
de Sevigne wrote some letters when she was half 
asleep ; if Dr. Johnson took the pains of setting 
4«wn what occurred to him before he was breeched, 



79 

this age is sure to have the benefit of seeing" these 
valuable works on hot- pressed paper ; all that good 
writers threw by as imperfect, all that they wished 
to be concealed from the world, is now edited in 
volumes twice as magnificent as their chief works. 
Still greater is the avidity for ana : it is a matter of 
the greatest interest, to see the letters of every busy 
trifler. Yet who does not laugh at such men ? To 
write to our relations and friends on events which 
concern their interests and affections, is a worthy 
employment for the heart and head of a civilized 
man; but to engrave upon the tittle-tattle of the 
day, with all the labour and polish which the richest 
gem could deserve, is a contemptible abuse of the 
pen, paper, and time, which is on our hands. 

It must be confessed, however, that knowledge of 
this kind is very entertaining ; and here and there 
amongst the rubbish, we find hints which may give 
the philosopher a clue to important facts, and afford 
to the moralist a better analysis of the human mind, 
than a whole library of metaphysics. 



80 



ON PLAYS. 



Paris. 

The dramatic art, when carried to perfection, may 
be defined to be that of exhibiting human nature in 
a point of view, either affecting or amusing. If we 
adopt this definition, it will not appear wonderful 
that the English should have succeeded best in tra- 
gedy, and the French in comedy. The English, 
fond of deep emotion, and reflecting long upon their 
own sensations, have portrayed with a truth which 
seemed scarcely attainable, the character and con- 
duct of individuals whom fortune placed in the high- 
est rank, and exposed to the most stormy trials. But 
in proportion to their success in this branch of art, 
has been their failure in the department of comedy. 
As the}' are little accustomed to display their feelings 
in society, authors have been obliged to supply, by 
extravagant plots and eccentric characters, the want 
of accurate portraits, and to borrow from fancy the 
interest which observation could not afford. 



81 

The French, on the other hand, who act as it were 
from the passion of the moment, who brood over no 
sorrow, and analyse no passion, gave to the work- 
shop of the tragedian only the undivided mass of our 
common affections. Corneille spoke only to our 
pride and courage ; Racine borrowed from Greece 
his fable and his sentiments ; Voltaire, endeavouring 
to improve upon therr^ has been more rhetorical than 
natural. But if genius and eloquence have not been 
sufficient to furnish France with a perfect example 
of tragedy, the easy tone of society, the grace and 
wit of ordinary conversation, and even the egotism 
of her people, have contributed to form the most per- 
fect comedies the world ever saw. Moliere might 
justly boast of having given to the moderns a claim 
to perfection in a very difficult and delightful branch 
of literature. But as I am conscious that both the 
English and French nations claim pre-eminence in 
both lines, I must illustrate my opinions more at 
large. 

It is quite superfluous to say any thing of the merit 
of Shakspeare. Had it required any farther illus- 
tration, the able comment of Schlegel would fully 
serve to place it clearly before the eyes of the world. 
His work would be still more valuable, did he not 
adopt the prejudices of an Englishman, and defend 
the faults as much as he praises the beauties of his 
favourite author. No sophistry, however ingenious, 



82 

will be sufficient to persuade an unprejudiced person, 
thc.t the unities are of no use in assisting the illusion 
of the theatre. It is idle to say that there is no illu- 
sion, or that — " the truth is, the spectators are al- 
ways in their senses, and know, from the first act to 
the last, that the stage is only a stage, and that the 
players are only players. -They came to hear a cer- 
tain number of lines recited with just gesture and 
elegant modulation. The lines relate to some ac- 
tion, and an action must be in some place ; but the 
different actions that complete a story, may be in 
places very remote from each other ; and where is 
the absurdity of allowing that space to represent, first 
Athens, and then Sicily, which was always known to 
Ibe neiiher Athens nor Sicily, but a modern thea- 
tre ?"* 

As well migbt it be said, that the ancient bag-wig 
and sword were as suitable to the part of Cato, as 
the Roman dress ; since every one knew he was an 
Englishman, and not a Roman. Indeed, the argu- 
ment extends to the abolition of all dramatic repre- 
sentation ; for why should not a single person read 
out a play as well as, or better, than a motley com- 
pany ? But the fact is, a very lively image is pre- 
sented to the senses, and the mind derives great 
pleasure from pursuing the train of associations 

• Johnson, Preface to Shakspeare# 



83 

which are naturally excited by the events and pas- 
sions represented. The knowledge that the scene is 
not real, serves to prevent the distress from becom- 
ing* too intense, and thus an opportunity is obtained 
of indulging' the sensations of sympathy, pity, love of 
virtue, and indignation against vice, which nature 
has made so pleasiDg to us, without the pain that 
usually accompanies them. But in this course of 
emotion, it is a sad blow to the imagination to find 
on a sudden that the hero has travelled from Peru to 
Spain, or has grown twelve years older in the course 
of a minute. 

I will not here enter farther on the long-disputed 
question of the unities, but will just venture to pro- 
pose a compromise. 

If, on the one hand, a disregard of all proximity of 
time and place must weaken, if not break the thread 
of imagination, on tire other, too strict an attention 
to these objects either limits the author to a very 
narrow field of subjects, or induces him to break 
another great unity — the agreement of the person 
and the action with the time and the scene. An 
audience which is pleased with a hero, c - enfant au 
premier acte, barbon au dernier" may be justly 
called barbarous; but that which requires Mithri- 
date and his sons to carry on all their schemes 
against one another in the same place, must be 
owned to be endowed with no very warm imagina- 



84 

lion. Be this as it may, Shakspeare's fault in this 
respect seems to be that of the age, and approaches 
that of the early painters, who put David, offering 
himself to fight; David, throwing the sling; and 
David, cutting off the head of Goliah, in the same 
picture. 

The other fault which I mentioned, that of mixing 
comedy and tragedy, has been often defended ; it 
has, in fact, the merit of relieving the mind, op- 
pressed by too long a succession of sad scenes, and 
makes a tragedy palatable to ordinary minds. It is 
like the gas in mineral waters, which makes steel 
supportable to weak stomachs. But does it not also 
interrupt the interest ? and does it not prevent the 
existence of any strong emotion ? Shakspeare has 
best answered these questions, by diminishing the 
number of such scenes in Othello, Lear, and Mac- 
beth. 

The French tragedy may be fairly praised for 
beautiful poetry, for high sentiments, and even for 
grand situations. But it has one capital defect — it 
is not true to nature. The French, as a German 
writer truly observed, have painted passions and not 
characters. We have love in one play, ambition in 
another, but we have nowhere man. Shakspeare 
has described us more truly ; yielding first to one 
feeling and then to another, and giving way to the 
master passion only, after a struggle which exhibits 



85 

the inmost nerves of the human heart. The Mao 
beth of Racine would have uttered magnificent ver- 
ses and eloquent reasons, but he would not have 
been the individual whom we are all intimately ac- 
quainted with. In making these remarks, I would 
not be thought to undervalue the real merits of the 
French tragedies : on the contrary, I go to see them 
repeatedly with great pleasure. To hear the noblest 
sentiments of man embodied in the elevated, and yet 
natural diction of Racine, and pronounced by Talma 
or Mademoiselle Duchesnois, is to me a high gratifi- 
cation. But I regret that somewhat of the likeness 
to human action is lost by the over-attention which 
has been paid to the regularity of the plot, the uni- 
form succession of situation, and the copiousness, if 
not prolixity, of the speeches. Berenice is an in- 
stance of all these faults : there is but one incident, 
and all the scenes are but different ways of viewing 
the same object. It would be endless to enumerate 
the faults into which the French authors have been 
led by their mistaken view of tragedy. The best 
way, perhaps, is to consider a tragedy of Voltaire 
and one of Shakspeare. In doing this, I own that 
some disadvantages must be incurred. The poet 
who could please the enlightened audience of Paris, 
after Corneille and Racine had been long undispu- 
ted sovereigns of the stage, must excel in purity of 
taste the author who wrote for a coarse apd uncrita- 



86 

cal people, and who left his plays as rude as he first 
Wrote them. But the question that should be consi- 
dered is, which of the two was the clostst copier of 
nature? not which was the nicest observer of art. 
The two tragedies I shall take are by no means the 
best of either author, but they both belong* to the first 
rank, and are known all over Europe : Le Fana- 
tisme, or Mahomet le Prophete ; and Hamlet, Prince 
of Denmark 

Now, to take Le Fanatisme first, it might be worth 
while to consider whether it is a good mode to set 
out with proclaiming- that a tragedy is to represent a 
particular passion. But without spending any time 
in discussing a question, amply discussed and justly 
decided elsewhere,* I imagine we may safel} 7 say, 
that to represent the chief of a religion, different 
from our own, in the most odious colours ; to paint 
him as committing a great crime, of which there is 
no record ; to describe him, Contrary to the tenor of 
history, as a monster of cold-blooded vice — this, we 
may surely conclude, is not the best way to extin- 
guish bigotry. But even if it were so, I doubt if so 
pious- a purpose could justify a writer in teaching his 
audience to detest a character who was not detesta- 
ble. Mahomet seems to have been a man in whom 

* See the reviews of Miss Baillie's Playg on the Passions, 
jn the Edinburgh Keview. 



87 

virtue and vice were mixed in the ordinary propor- 
tions. He found his nation idolators ; the religion 
of the Jews, and even that of the Christians, pervert- 
ed and corrupted. He endeavoured, without de- 
straying* their faith, to persuade them that the unity 
of God was the vital principle of religion, and that 
the particular articles of their creed were not neces^- 
sary to obtain mercy at the judgment seat of Heaven. 
But, having met with success, he became ambitious, 
and declared that all who did not embrace his faith 
should be obliged to do so by the sword. One of his 
early commandments was to observe chastity ; but 
his passions got the better of him, and not satisfied 
with his own wives, he took possession of another 
person's. But that he was a cool hypocrite, only in- 
tent on empire and lust, is what history by no means 
teaches us. And there is no example which poets 
can give, so mischievous, as to distort the qualities of 
a great man, and to make his name unjustly odious 
to the world, for the sake of a paltry stage eifect.* 

* " After the conquest of Mecca, the Mahomet of Vo'taire 
imagines and perpetrates the most horrid crimes. The poet 
confesses that he is not supported by the truth of history, and 
can only allege que celui qui fait la guerre a sa patrie au 
nom de Dieu est capable de tout. The maxim is neither cha- 
ritable nor philosophic ; and some reverence s surely due to 
the fame of heroes and the religion of nations.*' Gibbon, 
vol. v. p. 239, note, 4to. 



88 

But Voltaire having given the reins to his inven- 
tion on this subject, we must suppose that his fiction 
fs at least interesting- and engaging. Quite the con- 
trary. The original story is told by Gibbon iu a few 
Words, as follows : — " At the house of Zeid, his freed- 
man and adopted son, he beheld, in a loosejundress, 
the beauty of Zeineb, (Zeiu% wife,) and burst forth 
into an ejaculation of devotion and desire. The 
servile, or grateful freedman, understood the hint, 
and yielded without hesitation to the love of his be- 
nefactor. " Out of this story Voltaire weaves the 
most horrible tale ; he makes Zeid the brother of 
Zeineb, and the son of Zopire, whom Mahomet is 
said to have persecuted, and he then makes Zeid, 
ignorant of his birth, murder his father, in order to 
become the husband of his sister ; whilst Mahomet, 
who urges him on, intends to sacrifice him to his own 
passion for Zeineb. A plot so horrible can create 
nothing but disgust. Nor does it serve to exculpate 
Voltaire, as he imagines, that Zeid is ignorant of the 
crimes. he commits. The spectator's knowledge of 
the real state of the case must prevent his feeling 
any interest in the development of the plot. He 
cannot sympathise with Zeid, for that were to wish 
for incest to be committed. Mahomet can only ex- 
cite horror. Zopire, indeed, awakens our pity ; but 
the old idolator is an inferior character. Nor is it a 
sufficient justification of the plot to say, that facts still 



89 

more ftdjrrible are recorded by history, or that the 
moral of the play is to prevent assassination commit- 
ted from the impulse of fanaticism. There are many 
facts in history unfit for the stage ; the sack of Jeru- 
salem by the Crusaders, for instance which was a 
direct consequence ok fanaticism. An event may 
be too horrible to dejl^e lustre from the embellish- 
ments of art and the ornaments of poetry. Nor does 
an assassination prove any thing- per se against fana- 
ticism. Brutus killed Caesar, who, perhaps, was his 
father ; but that proves nothing against the love of 
liberty. Assassination is a crime which proceeds 
often from reason perverted, and from feelings too 
warmly excited, either in a bad cause or a good one. 
The crime should be met with punishment, and torn- 
bated by reason ; but the motive ought not to be 
held up indiscriminately to our abhorrence. 

The want of sympathy in the fate of the chief ac- 
tors in this play, is not compensated by the fidelity 
of the characters to human nature. Of characters, 
indeed, there is only one, viz. Mahomet himself. 
Had Shakspeare undertaken to paint such a charac- 
ter, he probably would have drawn him as others of 
the same kind are known to have been, sometimes 
enthusiast, and sometimes hypocrite ; speaking in 
public the language of imposture, and even in his 
most private moments excusing the indulgence of 
his passions by some specious view of the glory of 
8* 



90 

cf God and the happiness of mankind. Above all, 
he would have taken care to have made the ambition- 
and the licentiousness of Mahomet appear in all his 
actions, and be abjured in all his words. Now, the 
method of Voltaire has been completely different : 
not only does he avow his odious vices, but he calls 
them by their names, and makes epigrams and an- 
titheses upon them, as if he were the Pope or Dr. 
Prideaux. He has not been on the scene five mi- 
nutes, when he says to Omar, one of his companions, 

u Je viens mettre a profit les erreurs de la terre." 

And again — 

il L'amour seul me console ; il est ma recompense, 
L'objetde mes travaux, l'idole que j'encense, 
Le Dieu de Mahomet ; et cette passion 
Est egale anxfureurs de mon ambition " 

Be it observed, that his real language was so very 
different, that when he asked his kindred which of 
them would be his lieutenant, he said, lt I know no 
man in all Arabia, who can offer his kindred a more 
excellent thing, than I now do you : I offer you hap- 
piness both in this life, and that which is to come, 
Ac.' 1 * 

* Sale's Koran, Prel. Discourse, p. b7. 



91 

But let us suppose, that this confidence is made 
like Sir Walter Raleigh's to Sir Christopher Hatton, 
in the Critick, for the sake of the audience. The 
next personage who comes on, however, is Maho- 
met's capital enemy. To him surely he will assume 
the Prophet. But no ; to him he says — 

" Vois quel est Mahomet ; nous sommes seuls, ecoute 
Je suis ambitieux; tout homme Test sans doute ;" he. 
" II faut un nouveau culte, et faut de nouveaux fers ', 
11 faut un nouveau Dieu pour l'aveugle univers." 
"je connais ton peuple, il a besoin d'erreur;" 
— — <* il faut m'aider a tromper l'univers. " 

Omar now returns, and Mahomet, after concerting 
with him a parricide, exclaims — 

" Allons, consultons bien mon interet, ma haine, 
L'arnour, 1'indigne amour, qui malgre moi m'entraine, 
Et la religion, a qui tout est sourais, 
Et la necessite, par qui tout est permis." 

I pass over other horrible and unnatural sentiments 
of Mahomet, and the scene where a young girl, 
otherwise interesting, consents that her lover, as the 
price of her hand, should become an assassm, in or- 
der to give the last words of Mahomet, pronounced be- 
fore Omar and his suite ; that is to say, those whom 



92 
it is his chief business to persuade of his divine mis- 



" Dieu que j'ai fait servir au malheur des humains, 
Adorable instrument de mes affreux desseins, 
Toi que j'ai blaspheme, mais que je crains enjcore, 
Je me sens condamne, quand l'universm'adore. 
Je brave en vain les traits dont je me sens frapper, 

J'ai trompe les mortels et je ne puis me tromper." 

***** 

" Je dois regiren Dieu l'univers prevenu; 

Mon empire est detruit si 1'homme est reconnu." 

Such is the language of Mahomet ; and I appeal to 
the lowest conjuror who preaches his art in the streets 
of Naples, if he could hope to continue his trade, if he 
did not put a thicker veil on his impostures. 

I come now to the tragedy of Hamlet, which has 
not pleased some of the best judges, even in our own 
country : Sir Joshua Reynolds is reported to have 
said, that he thought Shakspeare, having a great 
many fine things in his common-place book, invented 
the character of Hamlet, as a way of bringing them 
all out. Dr. Johnson delivers his opinion of the con- 
duct of this play, in the following words : " The con- 
duct is, perhaps, not wholly secure against objec- 
tions. The action is, indeed, for the most part, in 
continual progression, but there are some scenes 
which neither forward nor retard it. Of the feigned 



93 

madness of Hamlet, there appears no adequate cause, 
for he does nothing- which he might not have done 
with the reputation of sanity. He plays the mad- 
man most, when he treats Ophelia with so much 
rudeness, which seems to be useless and wanton 
cruelty. 

" Hamlet is, through the whole piece, rather an 
instrument than an agent. After he has, by the 
stratagem of the play, convicted the king, he makes 
no attempt to punish him ; and his death is at last 
effected by an incident which Hamlet had no part in 
producing. The catastrophe is not very happily 
produced; the exchange of weapons is rather an ex- 
pedient of necessity, than a stroke of art. A scheme 
might easily have been formed to kill Hamlet with 
the dagger, and Laertes with the bowl. 

" The poet is accused of having shown '^t le re- 
gard to poetical justice, and may be charged with 
equal neglect of poetical probability. The appari- 
tion left the regions of the dead to little purpose; 
the revenge which he demands is not obtained, but 
by the death of him that was required to take it ; 
and the gratification which would arise from the de- 
struction of an usurper, and a murderer, is abated 
by the untimely death of Ophelia, the young, the 
beautiful, the harmless, and the pious." 

Now, it appears to me, that Shakspeare proposed 
as his subject the workings of a noble, but irresolute 



94 

mind. For the purpose of his plan, lie places him 
where he is called upon to perform an act of revenge 
on his uncle, for the murder of his father, and inces- 
tuous marriage of his mother. Let a man of feeling' 
conceive such a situation, and then tell me if the fol- 
lowing conduct is unnatural In order to perplex 
his mind, the author makes the appearance of a ghost 
the only evidence of his mother's guilt. Hamlet's 
first purpose is instant revenge ; but the thoughts of 
so bloody an action, on the faith of an apparition, 
reduce him to an indecision which is the spring of 
his misfortunes, and of all the subsequent events of 
the play. The alternative, on the one hand, of mur- 
dering his uncle without cause ; and, on the other, 
of suffering the daily intercourse and existence of a 
man who may be the poisoner of his father, and the 
seducer of his mother, drives him into so black, so 
melanchol} 7 , so thoughtful a humour, that he is glad 
to escape observation and detection, by pretending 
madness which is only half-feigned. In this state of 
mind he sees the king at prayers ; the design of kill- 
ing him occurs, but his doubts and troubles stay his 
hand, and he contents himself with the illusion that 
he only forbears, because assassination would then 
be mercy. The play is an invention for discovering 
whether his uncle be guilty, which, though it con- 
vince him at the time, is far from determining him 
to commit a deed so bloody. He pauses on self- 



95 

destruction as the term of misery, and hence the 
soliloquy, " To be, or not to be." One very fine 
occasion for showing the irresolution of Hamlet, is 
taken when the player bursts into tears on reciting 
the story of Hecuba — 

" O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I," kc. 

Another still finer is in the fourth act, when Hamlet 
sees Fortinbras pass by with an army to conquer " a 
little patch of ground." The soliloquy he makes on 
this occasion is so complete a view of his character, 
that it is worth while to give it entire. 

" How all occasions do inform against me, 
And spur my dull revenge ! What is a man, 
If his chief good, and market of his time, 
Be but to sleep and feed ? a beast, no more. 
Sure, He that made us with such large discourse, 
Looking before, and after, gave us not 
That capability and god-like reason 
To rust in us unus'd. Now, whether it be 
Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple 

Of thinking too precisely on the event, 

A thought, which, quartered, hath but one part wisdom* 
And, ever, three parts coward — I do not know 
Why yet I live to say, This thing's to do ; 
Sith I have cause, and will, and strength, and means 
To do't. Examples, gross as earth, exhort me : 






96 



Witness, this army, of such mass, and change, 
Led by a delicate and tender prince, 
Whose spirit, with divine ambition puft, 
Makes mouths at the invisible event ; 
Exposing what is mortal, and unsure, 
To all that fortune, death, and danger, dare, 
Even for an egg-shell Rightly, to be great 
Is not to stir without great argument ; 
But greatly to find quarrel in a straw, 
When honour's at the stake. How stand I then, 
That have a father kill d, a mother stain'd, 
Excitements of my reason, and my blood, 
And let all sleep ? while, to my shame, I see 
The imminent death of twenty thousand men, 
That, for a fantasy, and trick of fame, 
Go to their graves like beds ; fight for a plot, 
Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause, 
Which is not tomb enough, and continent, 
To hide the slain ? O, from this time forth, 
My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!'* 



It has been observed, very justly, that his beha- 
viour to Ophelia, the most outrageous thing* in the 
play, might arise from his being stung with the sus- 
picion of her treachery to him ; his speech to hi* 
mother is severe, but not unnatural ; in the middle 
of it, a new suspicion of a traitor rouses his hasty 
passion, and he pierces the arras ; he does not appear 
to feel much for his crime—his mind was fixed upon 



97 

a greater object, and Polonius had become hateful 
to him by his time-servingness. Rosencrantz and 
Guildenstern he suspects as being accessaries to a 
plot for his murder, and therefore plots against their 
lives in return. On coming back to Deumaik, pas- 
sion again overpowers him at the speech of Laertes, 
and the taunt thrown out against him, when he is 
conscious of having loved Ophelia, and of being 
afflicted at her death. The king conspires a second 
time against the life of Laertes, and Hamlet is 
wounded. Enraged at the apparent foul play, ha 
rushes in, seizes his antagonist's foil, and wounds him 
with it. Is this very improbable ? Informed of the 
treachery, he instantly despatches the king, and thus 
the play ends. Upon the whole, the chain of events 
is well connected. Hamlet, weak, though hasty, 
gives reason to suspect his intentions, but continual- 
ly delays his execution. The king sees through his 
madness, and endeavours to destroy his life. Hamlet 
appears again, yet irresolute. The king plots again, 
and with more success ; but Hamlet has life remain- 
ing to revenge his own death, not his father's. The 
catastrophe is a natural suite of the characters who 
are represented. Those who wish to see the play 
regularly conducted to an end by Hamlet, ask for 
that which is contrary to the character to be repre- 
sented. The very thing to be shown is, that Hamlet, 
hy his irresolution, is " rather an instrument than an 
9 



93 

agent." Dr. Johnson might as well have asked that 
Othello should be cured of his unreasonable jealousy. 
But, then, it may be objected no interest can attach 
to a play where the hero can never resolve to act. 
To this I might answer in the words of an able 
critic — " where the events described, or represented, 
spring, in their natural order of succession, from one 
source, the sentiments of sympathy which they ex- 
cite, will all verge to one centre, and be connected 
by one chain/' 

, But a still better answer may be given by men- 
tioning the fact, that Hamlet is acted as frequently, 
if not more so, than any play on the English stage. 
And thus Shakspeare has at the same time exhibited 
one of the finest, but most difficult characters it is 
possible to portray ; expressed the most philosophi- 
cal sentiments in the language of poetry ; and ani- 
mated the whole in a play, which the audience is 
always glad to hear repeated/ 

We come next to consider the comedies of the 
two nations. It has been said that tragedy exalts 
our nature, and that comedy lowers it. But this is 
not true — I know not that the Wonder lowers human 
nature more than Phedre — that we have a less idea of 
the dignity of man from the character of diaries Sur- 

* \fter I had written these remarks on Hamlet, I found 
that many of them had been anticipated in Dr. Drake's abk 
work on Shakspeare. 



m 

face than from that of Iago Tragedy places odious 
passions in the most odious light, and comedy throws 
a strong* ridicule upon the foibles of our nature. 

The comedies of Spain were the first in Europe 
to emerge from the barbarity of the rude ages, but 
they are far from exhibiting such a resemblance of 
human nature as has since been introduced into the 
drama by the English and French. The dramatis 
personce commonly consist of a very few characters : 
an old father, a daughter, a lover, and his servant, 
who is the confidant of his master and the buffoon 
of the play. The intrigue is generally produced by 
making two or more mistresses, and two or more 
lovers, mistake each other's persons and houses, and 
fall into a series of mistakes which complicate their 
affairs, and create an interest by the extreme inge- 
nuity and perplexity of the plot. But in all these 
comedies there is no variety ; but one view of human 
life, and no display of character. A few comedies 
of Calderon, Lopez de Vega, and Moreto, however, 
such as lyo Cierto por lo Dudoso, Lo Moza del Can- 
taro, El Desden por el Desden, and some others, 
might be mentioned, which are not liable to this 
censure. The English and the French comedies of 
the time of Charles II. and Lewis XIV. are both 
founded upon the Spanish basis ; but the French 
have been more successful than the English authors. 
Congreve, Wycherley, and Farquhar, adopted th@ 

. or v/. 



100 

-intriguing plot of the Spanish plays ; but, instead of 
copying the formal and heroic gallantry of the Spa- 
nish customs, they adapted their pieces to the licen- 
tious manners of our own Court. Hence they have 
lost much of their interest. Not all the wit of some 
of the wittiest writers, scattered without stint upon 
their dialogue, can make us feel an interest in ladies 
of fashion, who come in disguise to the Park, to hold 
conversations with young men of the town in lan- 
guage too gross and indelicate to be now tolerated 
in any society in the kingdom. We can feel neither 
pleasure nor pain at the misfortune of husbands, who 
seem to be quite as deserving of favour as the lovers ; 
and a marriage in masks is too remote from present 
manners, to give us any picture of real life. We 
see too plainly, that the whole is an imitation of the 
transient forms and manners of a court which is gone 
by, and which, being founded on the most odious 
selfishness, the most shameless want of principle, 
and the total absence of every afFectiou of the heart, 
has left nothing to cause it to be remembered. Mo- 
liere, on the other hand, laid his foundations deep 
upon human nature itself. His great comedies are 
founded on the vices of avarice and hypocrisy, and 
on the foibles of affectation of rank, affectation of 
knowledge, affectation of sickness, which are always 
to be found in society. His genius was of the high- 
est order, capable of seizing every shade of charac- 



101 

ter, and of placing it in the point of view in which it 
was best calculated to excite ridicule. His best co- 
medies are a complete history of the vices or foibles 
they are intended to represent ; and his plots, in- 
stead of being a mere tissue of fortuitous incidents, 
are a well-conducted scheme of exhibiting, in all its 
parts, that quality of human nature, which forms his 
subject. He has done this sometimes with the dig- 
nity of a satirist, and sometimes with the playfulness 
and almost the buffoonery of a clown ; and hence he 
has been reproached by some with being a didactic 
poet, and by others with being a mere farce-writer. 
The latter of these changes is not worth speaking of, 
and the former might be dismissed with the reflec- 
tion, that the " School for Scandal," which is, per- 
haps, the best of our comedies, contains imitations 
of no less than three of the comedies of Moliere. 
The design and the character of Joseph Surface are 
evidently taken from the Tartuffe, the scandal scene 
from the Misantrope, and the broker scene from the 
Avare. But it may be as well to say a few words on the 
charge of dulness, which has been so boldly brought 
forward against the Tartuffe and the Misantrope. 
There is no greater advantage to the literature of 
a nation than to have a species of amusement, which 
is different from the common fare of other nations. 
The comedies in verse of the French, may be es- 
teemed to be of this sort ; they have a plot which is 
9* 



102 

capable of being" to the full as interesting as that of 
any other comedy, and finally they are ihe most re- 
fined of any dramatic spectacle. The only criticism 
that can be made is, that for persons to speak verse 
is out of nature ; but this is a quesiion which must 
be decided by the nation before whom these come- 
dies are represented ; for it is not, in fact, more out 
of nature that verse should be spoken, than that so 
much wit and so many incidents should occur in so 
short a time : the whole, it must be recollected, is a 
voluntary illusion. If, indeed, the sentiments spo- 
ken were heroic or extravagant, the whole world 
would be competent to object; but every one must 
agree that they are not different from those which a 
comic writer of England might put into prose. I 
know not why the hig-her comedy may not as well be 
put into rhyme as our trag'edy into blank verse. It 
may be said that comedy is intended to represent 
real life, which tragedy is not ; but, in fact, the 
School for Scandal is no more like ordinary society, 
than Hamlet is like the real life of kings and queens. 
Jt being once allowed that rhyme may be introduced 
in comedy, we gain the advantage of hearing" very 
good poetry recited by good actors. What, for ex- 
ample, can be more like g-ood familiar poetry, than 
the following observations on dress ? 



103 

Arislt. Toujours ail plus grand nombre on doit s ? ac- 
commoder, 
Et jamais il ne faut se faire regarder. 
L'un et 1' autre exces choque, et tout homme bien sage 
Doit faire des habits ainsi que de langage ; 
Wy rien trop affecter, et, sans erapresseraent, 
Suivre ce que l'usage y fait de changement. 
Mon sentiment n'est pas qu'on prenne la methode 
De ceux qu'on voit toujours rencherir sur la mode ; 
Et qui, dans cet exces dont ils sont amoureux, 
Seroient faches qu'un autre eut ete plus loin qu'eux; 
Mais je tiens qu'il est mal, sur quoi que Ton se fonde, 
De fuir obstinement ce que suit tout le monde, 
Et qu'il vaut mieux souffrir d'etre au nombre des fous, 
Que du sage parti se voir seulcontre tous. 

Or, if we wished to read a satire upon evil-speaking 1 , 
what could we ask better than the following 1 dia- 
logues between Ariste and Valere, and Ariste and 
Cleon, from the Mechant of Gresset ? 

Ariste. Valere. 
Valere. Lui refuseriez vous l'esprit? j'ai peine a le 

croire — 
Ariste. Mais k l'esprit mechant je ne vois point de 
gloire. 
Si vous saviez combien cet esprit est aise, 
Combien il en faut pen, eomme il est meprise ! 
Le plus stupide obtient la meme reussite. 
Eh ! pourquoi tant de gens ont-ils ce plat merite ? 



104 

Sterilit6 de Tame, el de ce naturel 
Agreaole, amusant, sans bassesse et sans fiel. 
On dit l'esprit commun : par son succes bizarre. 
La mechancete prouve a quel point il est rare : 
Ami du bien, de 1'ordre. et de l'humanile, 
Le veritable esprit noarche avec la bonte. 
Cleon n 'off re a nos yeux qu'une fausse lumiere. 
La reputation des mceurs est la premiere ; 
Sans elle, croyez-moi, tout succes est trompeur. 
Mon estime toujours commence par le cceur. 
Sans lui l'esprit n'est rien, et, malgre vos maximes. 
II produit seulement des erreurs et des crimes — 
Fait pour etre cheri. ne serez-vous cite 
Que pour le complaisant d'un homme deteste. 

V. Je vois tout le contraire ; on le recherche, on 
l'aime : 
Je voudrois que chacun me detestat de meme. 
On se l'arrache, an moins, je Tai vu quelquefois 
A des soupers divins retenu pour un mois : 
Quand il est k Paris il ne peuty sum re. 
Me direz-vous qu'on hait un homme qu'on desire ? 

A. Que dans ses procedes rbomme est inconsequent! 
On recherche un esprit dont on hait le talent \ 
On applaudit aux traits du mechant qu'on abhorre ; 
Et loin de le proscrire on l'encourage encore. 
Mais convenez aussi qu'avec ce mauvais ton, 
Tous ces gens dont il est I'oracle ou le bouffon, 
Craignent pour eux le sort des absens qu'il leurlivre, 
Et que tous avec lui seroient faches de vivre : 
On le voit une fois, il peut etre applaudi ', 
Mais quelqu'un voudroit-il en faire son ami P 



105 

V. On le craint ; c'est beaucoup. 

A. Merite pitoyable ; 
Tour les esprits senses est-il done redoutable ? 
C'est ordinairement a de foibles rivaux 
Qu'il addresse les traits de ses mauvais propos. 
Quel honneur trouvez-vous a poursuivre, a confondre, 
A desoler quelqu'un qui ne peut vous repondre ? 
Ce triomphe honteux de la mechancete 
Reunit la bassesse et l'inhumanite. 
Quand sur I'esprit d'un autre on a quelque avantage, 
jN 'est-il pas plus flatteur d'en meriter rhommage, 
De voiler, d'enhardir la foiblesse d'autrui, 
Et d'en etre a la fois et Taraour et l'appui ? 

V. Qu'elle soit un peu plus, un peu raoins vertueuse, 
Vous m'avouerez du moins que sa vie est heureuse. 
On epuise bient6t une societe \ 
On sait tout votre esprit ; vous n'etes plus fete 
Quand vous n'etes plus neuf ; il faut une autre scene 
Et d'autres spectateurs : il passe, il se promene 
Dans les cercles divers, sans gene, sans lien ; 
II a la fleur de tout, n'est esclave de rien. 

A. Vous le croyez heureux ? Quelle ame meprisable ? 
Si c'est la son bonheur, c'est etre miserable, 
Etranger au milieu de la societe, 
Et partout fugitif, et partout rejete. 
Vous connoitrez bient6t par votre experience 
Que le bonheur du coeur est dans la confiance. 
Un commerce de suite avec les memes gens ; 
L'union des plaisirs, des gouts, des sentimens ; 
Une societe peu nombreuse, et qui s'aime, 



106 

Ou vous pensez tout haut, ou vous etes vous-m&ne, 
Sans lendemain, sans crainte, et sans malignite, 
Dans le sein de la paix et de la surete : 
Voila le seul bonheur honorable et paisible 
D'un esprit raisonnable, et d'un cceur ne sensible. 
Sans amis, sans repos, suspect et dan^ereux, 
L'homme frivole et vague est deja malheureux. 
Mais jugez avec moi corabien Test davantage 
Un mechaut affiche dont on craint le passage ; 
Qui, trainant avec lui les rapports, les horreurs, 
L'esprit de faussete, l'art affreux des noirceurs, 
Abhorre, meprise, couvert d'ignominie, 
Chez les honnetes gens demeure sans patrie : 
Voila le vrai proscrit, et vous le connoissez. 

V. Je ne le verrois plus si ce que vous pensez 
Alloit m'etre prouve : mais on outre les choses ; 
C'est donner a. des riens les plus horribles causes. 
Quant a la probite nul ne peut 1'accuser : 
Ce qu'il dit, ce qu'il fait n'est que pour s'amuser. 

Ji. S'amuser, dites-vous ? Quelle erreur est la votre! 
Quoi ! vendre tour-a-tour, immoler 1'une a l'autre 
Chaque societe, diviser les esprits, 
Aigrir des gens brouilles, ou brouiller des amis, 
Calomnier, fietrir des femmes estimables, 
Faire du mal d'autrui ses plaisirs detestables; 
Ce perme d'infamie et de perversit6 
Est-il dans la meme ame avec la probite ? 
Et pai viji vos amis vous souft'rez qu'on le nomme ! 

V. Je ne le connois plus s'il n'est point honnete homme 
Mais il me reste un doute : avec trop de bonte 



123 

liberty during* this reign, wc must take into account 
its two wars, American and French, and the increase 
of public debt and establishments. In estimating", 
on the other hand, what new securities liberty has 
gained, we must pn* into the balance Mr. Fox's law 
of libel, the resolution against general warrants and 
the vast increased weight of public opinion ; and this 
again leads us to the alarms and restrictive mea- 
sures. 

Whatever may have been the reasons, good or 
bad, which induced the government of this country 
to undertake a war agamst the insurgent colonies of 
America, and whatever may have been the policy, 
or even the necessity of entering into a contest with 
the French republic, it cannot be denied, that the 
object of both these wars was to oppose popular re- 
volution, and that their spirit was contrary to popu- 
lar principles. It may be said, indeed, that both of 
these wars were supported by the full concurrence 
of the people of this country. But this objection 
takes away nothing from the weight of the observa- 
tion which I wish to make. It must be recollected, 
that a high-spirited nation is easily incited to take 
arms; and, whether they do so in a cause congenial 
to freedom, depends entirely upon the occasion which 
presents itself, and the use which is made of it by 
those whose talents qualify them to direct public 
opinion. Now, the occasions upon which both of the 
wars before alluded to arose, were the resistance 



124 

of a people to its government ; and the arguments 
adopted to induce this country to declare war, were 
chiefly an appeal to its insulted dignity, and to its 
feelings of loyalty and piety. During- a long period 
of this reign, comprising more than half of its ex- 
tended duration, no attempts have been wanting to 
inflame the public mind, daily and hourly, against the 
rebellious subjects of our own king, and agaiost a 
neighbouring nation, which deposed and executed its 
sovereign. It is impossible but that these invectives 
must have had their effect, and it can create surprise 
in no one that a country so excited, so taught, and 
so inflamed, and that too by one of the most eloquent 
writers, and one of the most eloquent speakers whom 
Eugland has produced, should become at last ex- 
tremely clive to every supposed misdemeanor against 
prerogative, and completely dull and insensible to 
amy violation of constitutional rights. Nor will those 
escape bJame in the page of history, if any such 
there were, who led the people on by exaggerated 
representations of facts ; who inflamed their imagi- 
nation by highly-coloured pictures of carnage and of 
murder, and endeavoured to put a stop to internal and 
civil bloodshed in one nation, by extending slaughter 
and desolation to every state in Europe, and every 
region of the globe. The example of the French 
Revolution, however, has had an influence still more 
direct on the progress of our affairs ; the French 
Revolution is ascribed to every thing, and eyery 



125 

thing* is ascribed to the French Revolution. If a 
book is written containing- new opinions on subjects 
of philosophy and literature, we are told to avoid 
them, for to Voltaire and to Rousseau is to be as- 
cribed the French Revolution. If an ignorant cob- 
bler harangues a ragged mob in Smithfield, we are 
toH that the state is in dangler, for the fury of a mob 
was the beginning" of the French Revolution. If 
there is discontent in the manufacturing towns, we 
are told that the discontent of the manufacturing' 
towns in France was the great cause of the French 
Revolution. Nay ; even if it is proposed to allow a 
proprietor of land to shoot partridges and hares on 
his own ground, we are told that this would be to 
admit the doctrine of natural rights, the source of 
all the evils of the French Revolution.* 

It is in vain that these absurd clamours are repeat- 
edly refuted; it is in vain that it is shown that the 
French Revolution arose from one simple cause, the 
discordance of a brave and enlightened people, with 
a corrupt, bigoted, and despotic government ; it is in 
vain that the atrocities of the revolution are shown 
to have been owing partly to the cruel character of 
the people, and partly to the alarm excited by foreign 
interference. 

It is to no purpose that it is observed, that no com* 
parison can be drawn between a country which had 

* See Parliamentary Debates, It? 19, 
11* 



l<26 

no constitution and no freedom ; and one which has 
a constitution, and where the whole people are free. 

The voice of reason is not listened to; the whole 
precedent is taken in the gross as a receipt in full 
for every baa law ; for every ancient abuse ; for 
maintaining* error, and applauding incapacity. It is 
as if a patient were worn out with bad fare, and ex- 
hausted with debility, and a physician should admi- 
nister copious bleedings, because his next-door 
neighbour was dying of a pleurisy. 

Whilst the power of the crown has been thus in- 
creased by the doctrines, it has been no less aug- 
mented b} the burdens of the war. After the peace 
of 1763, the interest of the debt was about 4,600,000/.: 
it is now 31,440,000/. exclusive of the sinking fund. 
The whole sum raised by taxes and loans did not 
then exceed 14,000,000/. : the whole sum now raised 
yearly in taxes alone, is between 54 and 55,000,0OOZ 
But this sum is great, not only in comparison of all 
which has preceded, but also with reference to the 
entire wealth of the country. The income-tax of 
ten per cent, produced no more than 14,000,000/. 
Now it is easy to conceive how great a weight 
must be added to government by the immense 
sum thus collected from the people. This great re- 
venue is divided into three portions, each adding* in 
its vocation to the influence of the crown. The 
first is the debt ; the second, establishment; and the 
third, office. With respect to the influence of the 
debt, it is greater than could at nrst sight be sup- 



127 

posed; a landholder is entitled to his dividend, it may 
be said, and has no obligation to any one : but this 
rule does not hold in practice. The large fundholder r 
imagines, that it will be of advantage to him to be a 
friend of government in any business that may take 
place with respect to the financial measures of the 
year, and even though the minister should discourage 
such an expectation, it is impossible to avoid a cer- 
tain degree of coquetry. Besides, is it not natural 
that the fundholders should look on those as their 
friends, who have been the causes of their prospe- 
rity, and the immediate instruments of their wealth? 
It was probably to make friends to the Hanover suc- 
cession and to themselves, that the Whigs of 1695 
promoted the funding system. 

The Pitt system of government, therefore, which 
created three times as much funded property as it 
found, and enabled a banking corporation to issue 
money of paper to any extent, must have made itself 
friends in proportion. At the same time, I by no 
means intend to deny that many stout friends of 
freedom are to be found amongst those who have 
acquired fortunes by the loans. But they are the 
exception. 

The feeling of attachment to the ministry is car- 
ried still farther by the smaller fundholders ; num- 
bers of them imagine that their property is contin- 
gent upon the permanence of a first Lord of the 
Treasury ; and they have no other notion of opposi- 
tion than an attempt to make a national bankruptcy. 



128 

This idea certainly prevails only among" the very ig- 
norant, who are, however, a body of great weight 
and number. 

The second application of the taxes is to establish- 
ment. An establishment which in 1790 cost four 
millions and a half, now costs upwards of eighteen ; 
our troops are augmented with the increase of our 
colonies ; and our forts and governments are multi- 
plied in every part of the globe. 

The third direction of the public money is to main- 
tain offices ; and allowing that many reductions have 
been made, there still remains enough to create and 
support an independent, unpopular, incapable admi- 
nistration. It has been said, that the reduction of 
establishment and offices diminishes the influence of 
the crown Supposing that at the moment it does 
30 ; yet an establishment- once reduced, is, on the 
contrary, a source of increased influence ; for persons 
who have served will be much more anxious to be 
appointed to a vacancy, than those who have not 
already devoted themselves to a profession. It is 
wonderful to observe, too, with how much eager- 
ness parents seek to employ their sons in a situation 
of perpetual dependence; 10,000/. a year may be 
made by physic ; 14,000/. a year by surgery ; 
18,000/. a year by the property of a newspaper; 
17.000/. a year by pulling out teeth ; but rather 
than all these, a prudent, steady man, will make his 
first-born a clerk in a government office, where, if 



129 

he surpasses his fellows both in merit and favour, he 
may, in time, receive 2,000/. a year at the will of a 
minister. 

A class of offices which is more important, per- 
haps, than all the rest, is that of persons employed in 
the collection of the revenue; upwards of four mil- 
lions a year are spent in this necessary service. 
Every year a large book is presented to the house of 
Commons, containing an account of the augmenta- 
tion of salaries and superannuations, chiefly in offices 
of this description. These offices are thus disposed 
of. The offices of the excise are generally given by 
the commissioners of excise appointed by govern- 
ment, a few being reserved for the patronage of the 
Treasury ; i. e. in other words, for members of the 
house of Commons. The offices of the customs are 
entirely at the disposal of the Treasury ; the offices 
of the stamp and post-offices are given by the Trea- 
sury, at the recommendation of members of parlia- 
ment, voting with government. The receivers -gene- 
ral of the land-tax, whose poundage alone amounts to 
about 78,000/, a year, and whose balances give as 
much more, are appointed at the recommendation of 
county members voting with government In the in- 
stance of one county, this office was lately divided 
into two, to increase the patronage. Where the 
members for the county both vote with opposition, 
the appointment is given to the person who the first 
lord of the Treasury thinks ought to be member for 



130 

the county. Thus it is, that the influence of the 
crown has not only been augmented, but organized, 
aud directed in a manner never before known. 

Without entering" on the question of reform, I may 
here observe, how much the disciplined corruption 
of the Treasury increases ministerial influence in 
parliament. The produce of the taxes descends in 
fertilizing- showers upon the proprietors, the agents, 
and the members of boroughs. For them there is a 
state lottery which is all prizes ; the beautiful gra- 
dation of ranks is observed there, in all its harmonious 
p-oporlions. The elector of a borough, or a person 
he recommends, obtains a situation in the customs ; 
the attorney who acts for the borough, disposes of a 
commission in the navy ; the member of parliament 
obtains a place in the Mediterranean for a near rela- 
tion ; the proprietor of two boroughs obtains a peer- 
age in perspective ; and the larger proprietor, fol- 
lowed by his attendant members, shines in the sum- 
mer of royal favour, with a garter, a regiment, an 
earldom, or a marquisate. 

To all this we must add the old inevitable influence 
of the crown, in (he professions of the church and 
the law. How few men there are who can go 
through life in utter contempt of the rewards, which 
are the proper objects of their ambition ! How few 
who, contenting themselves with deserving to be 
Bishops and Chancellors, by their talents and indus- 



107 

Je crains de me froquer de singularity. 
Sans condamner l'avis de Cleon, ni le vutre, 
J'ai l'esprit de mon siecle, etje suis comme un autre: 
Tout le raonde est mechant ; etje serois partout 
Ou dupe, ou ridicule, avec un autre gout 
A. Tout le monde est mechant ? Oui, ces cceurs halfs- 
sables, 
Ce peuple d'hommes faux, de femmes, d'agreables, 
Sans principes, sans mceurs, esprits bas et jaloux, 
Qui se rendent justice en se meprisant tous. 
En vain ce peuple affreux, sans frein et sans scrupule, 
De la bonte du cceur veut faire un ridicule ; 
Pour chasser ce nuage et voir avec clarte 
Que l'homme n'est point fait pour la mechancete, 
Consultez, ecoutez pour juges, pour oracles, 
Les hommes rassembles ; voyez a nos spectacles, 
Quand on peint quelque trait de candeur, de bonte, 
Ou brille en tout son jour la tendre humanite, 
Tous les cceurs sont remplis d'une volupte pure, 
Et c'est la qu'on entend le cri de la nature. 

Le Mtchant, Acte4. sc.4. 

Ariste. Cleon. 

A. Tout seroit explique si Ton cessoit de nuire, 
Si la mechancete ne cherchoit a detruire. 

C. Oh, bon ! quelle folie ! etes-vous de ces gens 
Soupconneux, ombrageux ? croyez-vous aux mechans£ 
Et realisez-vous cet etre imaginaire, 
Ce petit prejuge, qui ne va qu'au vulgaire ? 
Pour raoi, je n'y crois pas : soit dit sans interet, 



108 

Tout le monde est mechant, et personne ne Test ; 

On re^oit, et Ton rend ; on est a-peu-pres quitte. 

Parlez-vous des propos ? comme il n'est ni merite, 

IS'i gout, ni jugement qui ne soit contredit, 

Que rien n'est vrai sur rien ; qu'importe ce qu'on dit ? 

Tel sera mon heros, et tel sera le votre ; 

L'aigle dune maison n'est qu'un sot dans une autre; 

Je dis ici qu'Eraste est un mauvais plaisant : 

Eh bien ! on dit ailleurs qu'Eraste est amusant. 

Si vous parlez des faits et des tracasseries, 

."le n'y vois, dans le fonds, que des plaisanteries ; 

Et si vous attachez du crime a tout cela, 

Beaucoup dhonnetes gens sont de ces frippons-la. 

L'agrement eouvre tout, il rend tout legitime. 

Aujourd'hui dans le monde on ne connoit qu'un crime, 

C'est l'ennui : pour le fair tous les moyens sont bons ; 

II gagneroit bientot les meilleures maisons, 

Si Ton s'aimoit si fort ; l'amusement circule 

Par les preventions, les torts, le ridicule. 

Au reste, chacun parle et fait comme il l'entend : 

Tout est mal, tout est bien ; tout le monde est content. 

A. On n'a rien a repondre a de telles maximes : 
Tout est indifferent pour les ames sublimes. 
Le plaisir, dites-vous, y gagne ; en verite, 
Je n'ai vu que l'ennui cbez la mcchancete. 
Ce jargon eternel de la froide ironie, 
L'air de denigrement, l'aigreur, la jalousie, 
Ce ton mysterieux, ces petits mots saps fin, 
Toujours avec un air qui voudroit ctre tin ; 
Ces indiscretions, ces rapports infidcU«, 



109 

Ces basses faussetes, ces trahisons crueller ; 
Tout cela n'est-il-pas, a le bien definir, 
L'irnage de la haine, et la mort du plaisir ? 
Aussi ne voit on plus ou sont ces caracteres, 
L'aisance, la franchise, et les plaisirs sinceres. 
On est en garde, on doute enfin si Ton rira. 
L'esprit qu'on veut avoir gate celui qu'on a. 
De la joie et du cceur on perd l'heureux langage^ 
Pour l'absurde talent d'un triste persifflage. 

Acte4. sc.7. 



1Q 



no 



POLITICAL ECONOMY. 



London^ 1819. 

Political Economy is an awful thing. It is ap- 
palling 1 to think that the Legislature is often called 
upon to decide questions which involve the immediate 
happiness, perhaps the very existence, of millions of 
the people, by the rules of a science which changes 
from day to day. It is not a matter of very urgent 
or pressing necessity to know, whether oxygen gets 
the better of phlogiston, or chlorine is a better 
founded name than oxy-muriatic acid. But it is of 
another kind of importance, to know whether a silver 
currency, of a certain standard, will prove a consi- 
derable benefit or certain ruin ; whether an over- 
flowing abundance of cheap foreign corn is a bless- 
ing or a curse to the nation which imports it. Yet 
these are questions to be decided by reference to the 
authority of men, who, with all their talents, do not, 
I must confess, inspire me with perfect confidence. 
Id the first place, it is difficut to trust implicitly in 



Ill 

men who allow themselves to contradict the most sa- 
cred principles of their own laws. Adam Smith, for 
instance, thinks it would be right that every gentle- 
man should be forced, by taxation, to keep a certain 
quantity of land in his own hands. M. Say, another 
great authority in these matters, maintains, that it 
would be right for a government to point out the 
districts in which manufactures ought to be establish- 
ed. If it is not easy to pay implicit deference to the 
authority of great political economists, it is also dif- 
ficult to obtain a precise idea of what is the object 
or the subject of their science. M. Say, above 
quoted, tells us, in the beginning of his book, that 
political economy, which, according to him, ou^ht to 
be called by some harder name, comprehends all 
means of acquiring wealth, and that a stock of learn- 
ing or professional knowledge is as much capital as 
any other species of wealth. Yet, soon afterwards, 
he falls into common language, and speaks of Bo- 
logna as a place of great learning, but no wealth. 

Next, there is nothing so various as the opinions of 
political economists. Adam Smith says, that the 
price of provisions regulates wages ; Lord Lauder- 
dale maintains, and supports his opinions by wit- 
nesses, that it has almost no influence upon wages. 
Political economists, in general, think there cannot 
be too much capital, or too great an increase of ma- 
chinery. M. Sismocdi thinks capital may be too 



in 

abundant, and that machinery may starve (he peo- 
ple .* These opinions may be knowledge in the mak- 
ing", as Bacon finely calls the opinions of enlightened 
men, but, until it is made, one would hesitate to 
stake the happiness of a nation upon them. A very 
useless controversy was carried on for a long period 
on the division of the population into productive and 
unproductive labourers. It seems, at last, to be 
agreed to drop the distinction altogether, although, 
perhaps, it was good for arrangement. 

Another distinction, almost as vain, has sprung up, 
respecting the modes of spending wealth. The 
money which is spent on improving land or building 
eotton-mills, is supposed to be laid out productively ; 
whilst that which is spent on consumable articles, 
such as claret or silk, is supposed to be wasted. But 
it is quite evident, that when men have attained a 
eertain d e of wealth they will spend a great part 
of it, at ast, ou objects of enjoyment. Wh ether 
they w r il) benefit their country thereby, depends sole- 
ly on the industry of the working part of the com- 
munity- if they are indolent, and have no opportu- 
nities for manufactures, as in Spain, the consump- 
tion of English muslins by the grandees will only 
cause the cultivation of a few more grapes and 
olives. If, as in England, the people are industrious, 
the consumption of silk and claret, raisins and bran- 
dy, will cause a fresh impulse to be given to tho 



113 

manufacturers of cotton, yarn, and muslin, cloth and 
hardware, and to the commerce and trade of the 
country. In fact, in an industrious country, nothing 
better can be desired than a great taste for luxurious 
enjoyments amongst the people ; but in a sluggish 
country, on the other hand, the use of foreign luxu- 
ries is only confined to a few, and probably displaces 
some articles of domestic manufacture. And here I 
have mentioned one of the great limits to the sci- 
ence of political economy, which has been nearly 
overlooked by its preachers — the customs, habits, 
and manner of nations. In France, for instance, M„ 
Say tells us, any tax on hats diminishes the consump- 
tion of the article. His observation shows, that 
France is not a country of great wealth ; but proves 
nothing, as he intends it should, with respect to taxes. 
An intelligent manufacturer, who travelled to as- 
certain the state of manufactures in France, found 
that the main difference between that country and 
England was, that the English workmen worked 
many more hours than the French. Valencia and 
Catalonia, where the most absurd restrictions are 
imposed on agriculture and trade, are the most 
flourishing and most populous parts of Spain. Here 
js a proof that habits of industry, and taste for enjoy- 
ment, are of more importance than any laws of regu- 
lation. 
But the great limit to the science of political- 
10* 



114 

economy, is the difficulty of collecting' data suffi- 
cient upon which to found any certain rules. If all 
nations were at peace, if they had all the same cur- 
rency and the same weights and measures, and if all 
national prejudices were abolished, it would then be 
easy to legislate according* to theoretical principles. 
But the frequent occurrence of war, the complication 
of political interests, the existence of ancient trea- 
ties, and, above all, the establishments of capital and 
of people. which have taken place, on the faith of the 
continuance of old arrangements, often render a 
question of political economy much more difficult to 
solve than almost any problem in the range of ma- 
thematics. For instance, it is very easy to say, that 
the trade in corn ought to be free, like any other 
trade, and that if your farmers cannot grow corn so 
cheap as the foreign farmers, they ought to let it 
alone. But when you are requested to consider 
that every other trade is restricted by duties, amount- 
ing in some cases to a prohibition ; when you are 
told that many millions of capital have been laid cul, 
and many hundred thousands of people bred up and 
employed, on the presumption that the growth of 
corn would continue to be protected by law ; when 
it is stated to you that the taxes are so heavy in this 
country and so light in other countries, that the effect 
of a free importation of corn would be the ruin of all 
the farmers, the conversion of the people entirely 



115 

into manufacturers, and the consequent dependence 
of the whole nation on the commercial laws, and even 
the caprices of foreign nations, you must own you 
hare a knotty question to decide; and, besides all 
this, the question may be of such urgency, that I 
have seen several thousands of farmers utterly ruin- 
ed, the manufacturers suffering for want of the inter- 
nal trade, two hundred banks broken, and money 
change its value, solely because a year was given to 
consider of the arguments of the political economists. 
Again, with respect to paper-money. Nothing is 
so easy as to understand and to retail the sound theo- 
ry of a metallic and paper circulation ; nothing 
more safe than to confute the narrow and absurd 
maxims of the Bank Directors; and, you would sup- 
pose, nothing more obvious than the wisdom of re- 
storing a paper which has been depreciated, to its 
just value* But when you reflect that this question 
is intimately counected with another, namely, the 
finances and the taxes of the country; when" you 
consider that the restoration of the currency adds so 
much percent, to the taxes, already difficult to pay, 
and an equal per centage to the debt which almost 
overwhelms the country even uow : when you re- 
flect, besides, that the measure is not one of honesty, 
because the alteration was made twenty years ago, 
and debts both public and private have been con- 
tracted in currency depreciated from five to thirty 



116 

per cent. : it is then worth examining 1 , whether it 
will not be better to make your paper payable in 
gold at its present value. By adopting the more 
theoretical measure, it is true you give a striking ex- 
ample of your love of .principle, and of the danger of 
ever leaving it, but at the same time you risk the 
lives of a great portion of your people you cramp 
trade, you arrest commerce, and place yourself in 
new difficulties, when you ought to be making a 
vigorous effort to cope at once with your own debt, 
and the rival manufactures of other nations. In plain 
terms, these questions involve matters of more im- 
portance than those which merely regard the wealth 
of nations ; I mean considerations* which affect their 
morals and their lives. It is very true, that England 
would sell more cotton, if her manufacturers got 
cheap corn from Poland. But a statesman is bound 
to think, whether it would be better to have a mil- 
lion more people in the manufacturing towns, at the 
certainty of losing half a million of farmers and la- 
bourers : and he must place before his eyes the pic- 
ture of that half million starved out of existence, 
dragging along with them, for a time, the people 
employed in every branch of industry which depends 
upon their demand, clamorous for a pittance, which 
the inflexible spirit of science denies, shaking, per- 
haps, the pillars of the state, and menacing the whole 
order of society, before they suffer themselves to be 



117 

extirpated by famine. And here I may remark, that 
there is no more lamentable consequence of the mis- 
apprehension and misapplication of theories of politi- 
cal economy, than the opinions which prevail con- 
cerning- the relief of particular distress. It is true, 
certainly, that keeping- a number of the people on 
charity diminishes the funds of labour, and maintains 
a population which the society cannot fairly support. 
But this is no argument against relieving a portion 
of the people who. owing- to some accidental circum- 
stance, are thrown into misery. If you do not re^ 
lieve them they must perish, and the population is 
thus made adequate to the demand. This is the 
mode of acting" recommended ; and I must say, it is 
to the full as cruel as the most extensive plan of war 
and conquest. But then, it is said, if you do relieve 
them, you are diverting the funds of labour from the 
useful productive class to another class who make 
no return. But this is not at all necessary. Sup- 
pose, for instance, a landholder lays down two of his 
carriage horses, and gives the money to the poor, 
who are at the moment distressed ; Le lessens the 
consumption of oats, and increases that of wheat ; 
nor is it just to say, that the price of wheat is thereby 
increased to the active labourer. The persons re- 
lieved are, by supposition, already existing, and have 
been considered in the g-eneral production of corn 
for the year ; and it would be a cruel method, in- 



118 

deed, to allow them to starve, that corn might fall to 
a lower price than usual. Again, a manufacturer or 
merchant may lay out in some particular year of 
great distress the surplus of his profits in charity ; if 
thai surplus was to have been left to accumulate in 
the funds, or employed in stock-jobbing speculations, 
surely it may be diverted without much harm. But 
to come to the most difficult case of all, let us sup- 
pose his surplus profits were to be employed in fresh 
enterprises of industry ; in cleansing land, in extend- 
ing a manufactory, in building a ship ; even in this 
case he may do no harm by supplying the starving 
poor ; for, if they are allowed to perish, and the in- 
dustry of the country increases, a new population 
will be required, and, in the meantime, he will be 
obliged to pay higher wages to those who are em- 
ployed in his trade or manufacture. I have said, if 
the industry of the country increases, for it must be 
allowed that all these reasonings apply only to a 
flourishing people. If the country is falling into de- 
cay, no power on earth can maintain the population ; 
the hand of charity will gradually close, and new ob- 
jects will, at the same time, present themselves for 
relief. But it is not the distress of one year, or a 
stagnation, owing to some temporary cause, which 
should induce us to allow a part of our people, and 
that, perhaps, including some of our most industrious 



119 

artizans to die before our eyes — it is not humane, it 
is not wise. 

Another error, besides those which relate to the ob- 
jects and the certainty of this science, is the extreme 
exaggeration of its importance when taken alone- It 
has been asserted, that political economy affords rules 
for making nations happy, without disturbing their 
internal government, or awakening, like other poli- 
tical disputes, the alarms of ministers and kings.* 
But this notion tends only to produce delusion. The 
very ignorance in which despotic kings and their 
counsellors habitually live, prevents their attaining a 
true knowledge of the points in dispute between M. 
Say and M. Sismondi. It is only where there is a 
free press and an open discussion, that any science 
relating to government can attract attention and ac- 
quire importance. True it is, certainly, that 
Charles IV. of Spain established a Professorship of 
Political Economy at Salamanca ; but he soon ren- 
dered the appointment useless by placing the govern- 
ment in the hands of the Prince of the Peace, who, 
for a long time after he was First Minister, thought 
Prussia and Russia were the same country. 

But even if a Minister should arise in a despotic 
country, disposed to carry into practice sound plans 
of political economy, what obstacles would he not 

* See Stewart's Life of Adam Smith, 



120 

meet in the execution of his work ? How would he 
deal with royal monopolies ? By what means could he 
tax the nobility and clergy ? In what manner would 
he relieve the people from corves and other forced 
labour ? Manifestly and clearly only by making a 
popular revolution. 

Let us not then be deceived by specious proposals 
for a benevolent despotism. Government will al- 
ways be conducted for the benefit of those who go- 
vern. If the few alone govern, the interests of the 
few only will be provided for ; if the people them- 
selves have a share in the government, the interests 
af the many will be consulted. 



121 



STATE OF THE ENGLISH CON- 
STITUTION. 



"*• To sustain^ to repair, to beautify this noble pile, is a charge 
intrusted principally to the nobility, and such gentlemen ot 
the kingdom, as are delegated by their country to parliament. 
The protection of The Liberty of Britain is a duty which 
"they owe to themselves who enjoy it ; to their ancestors who 
transmitted it down ; and to their posterity, who will claim at 
their hands this, the best birth-right, and noblest inheritance 
of mankind.* Blackstone. 



There is nothing in human councils, or human 
institutions which stands still. The letter of law is 
changed to suit the occasion of the day, and the 
spirit of a government varies with the disposition of 
the rulers who govern, and the state of the people 
who are governed. It behooves us, then, as members 
of a free community, priding ourselves upon our li- 
berty, and enjoying (still enjoying) the benefits of a 
more unrestrained, more immediate, and more gene--. 
11 



ral discussion of all our interests, than an}* nation 
ever before possessed, to examine from *ime to time 
the condition of our state vessel, to overhaul her 
rigging", and to see that she has not sprung- a-le'sk 
upon the stormy voyages she has undergone. But if 
any moment is more peculiarly tit tor such an in- 
quiry, it is when a long- and eventful reign has come 
to its melancholy termination ; and when a prince 
ascends the throne, under the auspices of new laws, 
which we are assured are better calculated to pro- 
tect lecral and orderly freedom, than the old and 
venerable barriers called Magna Charta, and the 
Bill of Eights, which they are intended to modify 
and supplant. Yet, let me even here protest against 
being supposed to say, that those laws of themselves 
form any effectual control upon our liberties : the 
strength of Sampson is not to be subdued by seven 
green withs ; the new bills are only to be considered 
as steps in legislation, and as affording a measure of 
the temper in which the government of this country 
is in future to be conducted. The spirit which has 
been manifested by the ministers and their supporters 
in the session of November, 1819, forms one of the 
most important data upon which we can found an 
estimate of the vigour still remaining in the English 
constitution, and must be allowed to have an impor- 
tant place in a memorial of what is past, and a prog- 
nostic of what is to come. 

In reckoning up what the crown has gained upon 



131 

try, do not also endeavour to become so by their 
servility ! 

Let us now examine the opposite scale. Some 
improvements in constitutional law have been made 
during the late reign. The chief of these is un- 
doubtedly the libel law of Mr. Fox, to which the 
whole security of the free press is owing-; another 
is the declaration of the illegality of general war- 
rants ; and a great step was made by placing the 
civil list more entirely under the control of parlia- 
ment, first at the beginning of the reign, and then 
by Mr. Burke's bill. The act by which George III. 
at his accession, restrained his successor from re- 
moving the judges, is also a benefit; but so slight a 
one as to be hardly worth mentioning. 

The publication of the debates in parliament, and 
the general diffusion of political knowledge, is, on 
the other hand, a most important change. The cen- 
sor of the Roman republic, however austere in the 
exercise of his functions, could never equal in mi- 
nuteness of inquiry, or severity of rebuke, the un- 
seen and irresponsible public of the British Empire. 
What statesman can hear with unshaken Serves, 
that voice, which, beginning in the whispers of the 
metropolis, rises into the loud tone of defiance, with- 
in the walls of parliament, and is then prolonged by 
means of the hundred mouths of the press, till its in- 
numerable echoes rebound from the shores of Corn- 
wall, and the mountains of Inverness ? What minis- 



133 

ter, however profligate ia Lis notions, does not, in 
his parliamentary language, endeavour, in some de- 
gree, to conciliate the uncorrupted mind of the 
multitude ? The effect of this power is, however, 
very vaguely estimated, when it is said that public 
opinion overbalances any advantage the crown may 
derive from the increase of the standing army, or 
the extension of its influence. In the first place, 
this argument proves too much; for if public opinion 
is a sufficient counterpoise to power, why should we 
maintain the Habeas Corpus Act, or Magna Charta, 
or coutinue the existence of Parliament itself? But 
in the second place, in the very statement of their 
argument, its propounders are guilty of a fallacy ; 
they take for granted, that all the opinion which ha3 
been admitted to a share of influence in the state, is 
in a spirit of inquiry, and of control upon the govern- 
ment ; but if we examine the matter ever so little, 
we shall see that this is far from being the case. Let 
us analyze this great compound called public opinion, 
and endeavour to ascertain of what simple elements 
it consists. 

From the Revolution to the beginning of the pre- 
sent reign, the government of this country, though 
popular in all its laws, and most of its maxims, was 
in its nature aristocratical. The people, in the en- 
joyment of liberty, gave a large and generous con- 
fidence to those who had toiled and suffered to ob- 
tain it. But at the beginning of the present reign t 



i.-> -i 

several new parties arose, of which it will be suffi- 
cient to mark the outlines. 

One of these parties consisted of a new body of 
courtiers and sycophants, who called themselves the 
king's friends ; this tribe, which has been powerfully 
described by Mr. Burke, has been of late, somewhat 
broken and dispersed ; yet in a division last year in 
the House of Commons, it mustered above sixty. 
These men are of the true eastern race, equally in- 
dignant if a single equerry is taken away from the 
household of a king* who never leaves his chamber, 
or if a single concession is granted to a million of 
people starving with hunger. 

Another of these parties consisted of the old and 
steady friends of Divine Right ; they found it was 
no longer of any use to say, u that they were for 
passive submission, and were determined to resist 
the present dynasty." They found, like Cedric in a 
late novel, that it was hopeless to contest the crown 
with a government so firmly established ; but in 
changing the objects of their attachment, they by 
no means altered the nature or the spirit of it. 
They knelt to their new deities with all the fervour 
of the superstition which had bound them to their 
former idols ; they were still always ready to forget 
the interest of their country, to follow the advantage, 
or the caprice of a single family ; and it appeared 
by their conduct, that they had only abjured the 
errors of the House of Stuart, to embrace those of 
12 



134 

the House of Brunswick. No wonder that their 
allegiance was received with the most emphatic ex- 
pressions of gratitude.* 

The third party consists of that large number of 
persoos newly admitted, by a little smattering of 
newspaper reading, to a sight of the political drama, 
who are carried away by the vulgar feelings of ad- 
miration, for the trappings of royalty ; these persons 
are properly to be reckoned amongst the mob.f 

A fourth party, are those who are attached to the 
laws, but are perpetual alarmists. They would use 
the Constitution as some ladies do a new gown, 
never put it on for fear it should rain. They are 
continually reminding us of the necessity of burying 
party animosities for the sake of the country ; by 
which they mean, suspending the laws, to quiet their 
own nerves. It is upon these persons, especially, 
that the very name of French Revolution has the 
greatest effect ; they shut their eyes to every thing 
that is encouraging, in order to fix their gaze upon 
the low trash by which a few miserable individuals 
gain a precarious livelihood. It is upon these timid 
creatures also that the government press has the 
most pernicious effect ; nothing, it is well known, is 

* See the preface to Hogg's Jacobite Songs, lately publish- 
ed. 

f u Whenever this word occurs in our writings, it intends 
persons without virtue, or sense, in all stations ; and many of 
the highest rank are often meant by it." Tom Jones. 



135 

so likely to forward the sale of a newspaper, as au 
account of any news that is by the newsmen called 
" bloody ;" and now that the war is over, there is 
no way of obtaining- such news, but by exaggerating 
the numbers and the violence of public meetings. 
This mauoeuvre was practised to such an extent last 
year, that the whole nation took the alarm, and Eng- 
lishmen were ready to cut each other's throats in 
the surmise of a plot. Unhappily, in one instance., 
they went farther, and blood was shed in civil com- 
motion. May that day never be repeated ! 

We come now to the party, whom, for want of any 
other name, we may call the New Party. They re- 
quire a little further examination than we have given 
to the others. 

When education and wealth, and the publication 
of the debates, brought the politics of the day within 
the sphere of a larger portion of the community than 
had hitherto attended to them, it was not to be ex- 
pected that the new observers should immediately 
understand the movements of so complicated a ma- 
chine as the English Constitution. Except from the 
newspapers, their only knowledge of its principles 
was from books. Hence, according to their several 
dispositions, they took up with axioms wholly 
foreign to the practice of the best times. The 
abettors of the Tories, for instance, maintained, 
that the prerogative entitled the king to name 
his own ministers, and that whoever should in- 



136 

terfere, either with advice or remonstrance on such 
a subject, would be almost guilty of treason. The 
new allies of the Whigs, on the other hand, thought 
that they were. speaking in the true spirit of the Con- 
stitution, when they said that the House of Commons 
ought to be entirely independent both of the Crown 
and the House of Peers. To the Tory party these 
maxims of their friends could not fail to be agreea- 
ble, as they were quite reconcilable to their con- 
duct, and, indeed, were, in many instances, only a 
revival of their old doctrines, which had been ex- 
ploded by the Revolution of 1688. But some of the 
opinions of the new popular party were by no means 
so favourable to the Whigs : one or two instances of 
this may be mentioned. The system of government, 
before the accession of the present king, consisted 
in uniting the most considerable interests of the coun- 
try with the greatest attention to the liberties of the 
people. If then, at any time, a popular leader rose 
up, whose measures were sanctioned by public opi- 
nion, the party in power showed themselves ready to 
coalesce with him — a new vigour was infused into 
the administration, and increased success crowned 
their union. Thus, a coalition in 1746, produced 
the naval triumphs of the following year ; a coali- 
tion in 1766 led to the brilliant triumphs of the Seven 
Years' War. But when, in 1783-4, Mr. Fox formed 
a coalition to oppose the secret intrigues of the court, 
a cry of *• shame !" resounded from one end «f the 



137 

country to the other; and when, again, he united 
himself to Lord Grenville, in order to obtain a broad 
and liberal administration, numbers of his partizans 
grew cool in his cause, and sooner or later abandon- 
ed his party. The cause of this I conceive not to 
consist entirely in the peculiar nature of those coali- 
tions, (although, perhaps the former cannot be wholly 
justified ;) but is also partly to be attributed to the 
fact, that the popular part of the nation has grown 
much more critical in its observation of public men. 
A coalition is, in fact, nothing* more than an oblivion 
of former differences, in order to give effect to pre- 
sent agreement. With respect to the past, it is 
surely laudable ; with respect to the future, it is 
only an extension of the principle of party. But the 
parties in the nation love to think that the statesmen 
to whom they are opposed, are not only wrong in 
conduct, but vicious in principle. A Foxite of 1797 
looked upon Lord Grenville as a man endeavouring 
to ruin his country, that he might not lose his place ; 
a Pittite of that day looked upon Mr. Fox as risking 
revolutionary anarchy, because he was excluded 
from office. These are the exaggerations which 
prevail among persons below the rank, or distant from 
the place, in which the leaders of political warfare 
are to be found. No wonder that such persons should 
be averse to any thing like a compromise. It is as if 
in the last scene of Richard Ilf., when the audience 
eagerly expected Richard and Richmond to fight 
12 



138 

tlieir mortal combat, they were to step forward and 
shake hands. 

Let us now ask what is the consequence of this 
general dislike of coalitions ? The first is, certainly, 
that a political leader, conscious of true patriotism, 
will be cautious how he provokes a clamour against 
him, which may deprive him of the confidence of the 
people ; for the reliance on its integrity is the only 
strength of a party in opposition to the Court. The 
ultimate consequence, therefore, is, that the Court 
having to fight its adversaries single-handed, may, by 
a small portion of that cunning which is so common 
in palaces, defeat every popular party and every ne- 
cessary measure, and place its own tools on the 
ministerial bench. 

Another demand of the popular part of the nation 
is, that every political leader should, from the be- 
ginning of his life to the end, preserve the most rigid 
and undeviating consistency. Now, if this meant 
only, that he should remain constant to the same 
great principles — that having been an advocate for 
the Catholic Emancipation, he should not turn 
against it — that having been against the French 
war, he should not of a sudden defend it — nothings in 
my mind, could be more just than to require suchcon- 
sistency. The opposite would show a want of honesty 
or want of firmness ; either of which would make a 
statesman unfit to be trusted. But the consistency 



139 

required is of another and more difficult kind. What- 
ever means a public man has recommended as fit to 
be adopted in one state of the country, he is re~ 
quired to promote at another and very different pe- 
riod; whatever expressions he has let drop in the 
heat of debate, imperfectly caught up by a reporter 
in the gallery, he is required to accept and adhere to 
as his creed : and if ever he should be in power, he 
is to pay no attention to the commands of prudence ; 
he is to give no time to smooth the obstacles which 
his opponents in a long course of years have built 
up ; but he is to rush headlong into a precipitate 
course of action, under pain of being branded as an 
apostate, and loaded with the reproach of corruption, 
selfishness, and profligacy. It will be very easy to 
give an instance of this from recent history. When 
Mr. Fox came last into power, his mind was fixed 
upon two things — the Abolition of the Slave Trade — 
and Peace. In order to accomplish these first ends 
of his ambition he endeavoured to form an adminis- 
tration which the court might not be inclined, or 
might not be able, immediately to overthrow. But 
how ill were his great views seconded by those who 
professed to have in view the same objects with him- 
self! Every concession, however unimportant in 
principle, which he made to his new colleagues, was 
seized upon with avidity as a proof of degeneracy, 
and quoted against a whole life of struggle. Nor did 
his enemies confine themselves to truth. At the 



140 

risk of being* thought factious, he opposed a monu- 
ment to Mr. Pitt; and not long- after it was said that 
he supported it. But the jjrvat clamour, as we may 
all recollect, was on the subject of the income tax. 
Jt was found necessary to rai e the income tax to 
ten per cent. Mr. Fox declaring", that he thought it 
a very bad tax, but that his predecessors had left him 
no choice. Was this true or was it not? If it was 
not, why has no one ever attempted to show what 
other resources were left for the administration? If 
it was true, why is Mr. Fox cruelly reviled for that 
which was not his own doing ? If, indeed, he had 
persisted in the war, without negociating for peace, 
and had then proposed an income tax, he might have 
been accused of inconsistency ; but if our financial 
means had been overworked by the war of the year 
before, there was then no alternative for Mr. Fox 
but to impose taxes of which he disapproved; or to 
say to the enemy, " Our resources are exhausted — 
we surrender at discretion." Yet there is no re- 
proach, no invective, which has not been directed 
against Mr. Fox for his supposed inconsistency I 
• His memory has been pursued with calumny so fre- 
quent, that even the best minds have been tainted 
with prejudice against him; and his name remains 
as a beacon for all prudent men to avoid his gene- 
rous devotion, and a monument of the ingratitude of 
mankind to those who endeavour to spare their lives 
or promote their welfare, Let him who aspires to 



141 

the world's power and the world's favour, set fire to 
the faggots of persecution, or give a loose to the am- 
bition of conquest; let him tie down the human race 
by superstition, or waste them by the sword ; but if 
he wishes to be followed in his lifetime, and adored 
after his death by the greater portion of his country 
or of the globe, let him beware how he pleads the 
cause of freedom, of toleration, of humanity, or of 
peace ! 

It must be owned, certainly, that the severity of 
public criticism checks some of those unprincipled 
bargains and sudden turns which used formerly to 
prevail among political parties. Upon the whole, 
however, the political review tends great ly to the 
advantage of the court. Not only are its enemies 
divided and dispirited by the shackles that are thrown 
upon them, but ministers and courtiers are at the 
same time mainly free from this restraint. Those 
who coalesce with the men in power, those who are 
converts to the treasury, find in the rewards of office 
a solid compensation for any hooting they may un- 
dergo. Whilst their adversaries are obliged to sus- 
pend their attention to public affairs, in order to re- 
concile some discrepancy which appears between 
their opinions on reform, at an interval of twenty 
years, they who limit their humble ambition to office, 
change their whole dress, and appear with the great- 
est self-applause in an entire new suit of principles, 
opinions, sentiments, and votes. The criticism of 



142 

the public, in the mean time, does not stop at indi- 
viduals: party itself is the object of attack, and a 
regular committee is formed in the capital, more 
completely organized than any party ever was, for 
the purpose of preaching- against political union. 
Nothing, of course, can be more agreeable to the 
court party, with whom, indeed, this language origi- 
nated. If they could once divide their opponents, 
and bring a third of them to oppose rashly and inop- 
portunely, and another third to oppose weakly and 
seldom, the court battle would be half gained. 
The only solid hope of having any government car- 
ried on would then rest on the ministry, and how- 
ever ingenious the objections that might be made to 
their measures, no man could safely say that he pre- 
ferred the public views of opposition to those of the 
ministry. The tools of administration are, there- 
fore, most ready to join in decrying party. They 
are still more pleased when the self-styled reformers 
go a step further, and reprobate that very party 
which is opposed to the Court "Down with the 
whigs!" cries a trading politician at St. Stephen's; 
" Down with the whigs !" echoes a political trades- 
man from Charing Cross. Thus it is that the minis- 
ters of the king, and the preceptors of the multitude, 
unite in philippics against that party to which the 
house of Brunswick owes its crown, and the people 
its Bill of Bights. The rise of tliis new body in the 
state, is, perhaps, the must fortunate thing for the 



143 

progress of the crown which has occurred since the 
Revolution. For whilst its members are active in 
propagating all the old court echoes of the mischief 
of party, the corruption of all public men, that whigs 
are tones out of power, and tories whigs in poorer; 
another ministry would act just like the present, 
and a hundred more such doctrines, they contain 
within themselves a principle of destruction, which 
will prevent their ever becoming really formidable 
to the government. The creed which inculcates a 
distrust of all public men, applies as well to their 
own leaders, as to those of other parties. The ex- 
perience of the last few years has brought this to the 
test. Fortune had favoured them, by giving them a 
leader whose large possessions and gentlemanlike 
manners, gave a dignity and importance to the part 
which he took ; whilst his zealous hatred of injustice, 
and sincere feeling for the people, atoned with many 
friends of freedom for the eccentricities and contra- 
dictions of his political opinions. Instead of the hol- 
low patriotism of Wilkes, or the ingenious paradoxes 
of Home Tooke, the new party could boast that their 
leader possessed the zeal of real conviction, and the 
eloquence of the heart. But although every pains 
were taken to bind him whom they had brought into 
their snares, yet some of the ablest of the party soon 
discovered that their leader was as corrupt as the 
reviled and persecuted whigs. And scarcely had 
this fresh party been descried by our political 



144 

astronomers, before a new body broke off from 
it, and began to run its course in a still more 
irregular and eccentric orbit. If the new party 
complained of the want of public spirit among 
the whigs, and if a newer pretended to expose the 
mock patriotism of the first seceders, there still arose 
fresh sectaries, who did not fail to declaim against 
the overbearing and aristocratical insolence of the 
calvinislic church. At the same time, these renown- 
ed leaders, whilst they made themselves weaker and 
weaker by division, displayed every thing which was 
wanton and inflammatory in language, together with 
all that was feeble and futile in conduct. Provoca- 
tions to revolution were not insinuated at secret 
clubs, and taught by degrees to desperate and mis- 
guided followers, but openly proclaimed to mixed 
crowds, composed of the idle and the curious, as 
well as of the mischievous and the seditious. Like 
other novelties, violence of language and avowals of 
rebellion, had at first their attraction ; but the peo- 
ple soon began to be tired of hearing the same 
speeches on the same subjects, and with those who 
could find work, two, or even one shillings' worth of 
meat and clothes, were soon found to outweigh in 
value the froth and frippery of a cobbling orator. 
But the blow was struck : the speeches that had 
been made, the resolutions that had been passed, and 
the numbers that had been present at the scene, 
formed intelligence sufficiently alarming to all who 



145 

suffered themselves to he alarmed ; and although the 
real actors were as nothing* when opposed to the 
King-, the house of Lords, the house of Commons, 
the Army, the Navy, the Clergy, the Bar, the Yeo- 
manry, and the great hody of the commerce and 
trade of the country ; yet they were fully sufficient 
to excite a temporary panic, and to force the con- 
currence of great majorities in parliament to mea- 
sures totally opposite to the genius of the constitu- 
tion. 

Thus, the house of Commons more than once has 
met, perfectly disposed to hear its part in passing 
any measures of severe coercion, which the ministers 
of the day thought fit to propose. It was thus, that 
in 1795 and in 179f), laws were passed to prohibit 
public meetings without a sufficient authority, and to 
prevent printing, unless under certain regulations. 
In 18i7. these measures were renewed, and in 1819 
their severity has been much increased. Public 
meetings in the open air have been encumbered with 
so many difficulties, and at the same time that they 
are subjected to the restraints, have been declared 
to be so totally without the protection of the law, 
that no prudent man will for the future venture to a 
meeting out of doors, unless he is assured that its 
object is sanctioned by authority, and that its lan- 
guage will be agreeable to magisterial ears. This 
measure, as well as others, has been supported by 
language as well calculated to support the authority 
13 



146 

of the Ottoman Porte, as that of the king of Great 
Britain. Another law respecting the press has this 
remarkable preamble : 

" Whereas pamphlets and printed papers contain- 
ing observations upon public events and occurrences, 
tending to excite hatred and contempt of the govern* 
ment and constitution of these realms as by law es- 
tablished, and also vilifying our Holy Religion, have 
lately been published, in great numbers, and at very 
small prices : and it is expedient that the same 
should be restrained .*" — 

Now, what is the principle which constitutes the 
chief distinction of a free government ? Is it that 
justice is duly observed between man and man ? 
No ; for under the despotic government of Napoleon, 
justice, generally speaking, was duly administered. 
Is it that there should exist a senate or other assem- 
bly, formed for the purpose of controlling the mo- 
narch ? No ; for under the same Napoleon we have 
seen such assemblies become, as under the Emperors 
of Rome, the mere tool of the sovereign. The ruling 
principle of freedom is this, that no previous restraint 
is laid upon the actions, speeches, or writings, of the 
members of the state. The great argument of the 
advocates of despotism is, that by strong previous 
restraint, all the tumults and disorders which might 
arise from the unlimited discussion of public events 
are prevented, and at the same time, the necessity 
of punishment is avoided. How completely this ar- 



147 

gument fails in practice, is proved by the history of 
the Turkish monarchy, and the late experience of 
Spain since the return of Ferdinand. The argument 
of the friends of liberty, on the other hand, is, that 
no security for government can be so good as an 
easy and ready vent for all the opinions, and all the 
grievances of its subjects. By such means those 
who are in authority may remove discontent before 
it grows to disaiFection, and consider of a remedy 
before a grievance has become incurable. They 
acquire a knowledge of the designs and a measure 
of the strength of every party in the state. No 
secret plots disturb or arrest their career ; the winds 
may blow, and the waves may rise, but no hidden 
rocks, and no lee-shore, threaten the existence of the 
navigator. But if this is an advantage for the go- 
vernment, it is a much greater one for the people. 
Every one who has a mind to think, and a heart to 
feel, must have the desire of knowing the dangers, 
and of expressing his opinions on the policy of his 
country : it is the natural feeling of man who has 
risen above the rudeness of barbarism, and has not 
suffered the debasement of corruption. What is it 
which throws open to the student all the works of 
ancient and modern genius, and gives scope and 
vigour to his thought ? Freedom of the Press. What 
is it which ensures to the humble artizan a security 
that the profits of his industry will be protected, and 
that no rank or office is shut to his just ambition ? 



143 

Personal Freedom. What is it that ofives the injur- 
ed citizen a rig-tit to be heard by ins country, and 10 
make his complaint ring in the ears of his oppressor? 
Political Freedom. But it were endless to tell, 

How from that sapphire fount the crisped brooks, 

Kolling on orient pearl and sands of gold, 

With mazy error under pendant shades 

Run nectar, visiting each plant, and feed 

Flow'rs worthy of Paradise ; which not nick art 

In beds and curious knots, hut nature boon 

Pours forth profuse on hill, and dale, and plain. 

By the laws that I have mentioned, however, and 
particularly by the preamble which I have quoted, 
the principle of freedom is subverted, and the ruling 
maxim of despotism is admitted. 

The enactments, however, are far milder than the 
declarations of the law ; any meeting within doors 
may be held without observing a single provision of 
the new act, and a petition there agreed upon, may 
be signed by any number of persons out of doors. 
Printing and publishing are restrained most absurd- 
ly, it is true, to persons of a certain property ; but 
still it is not to be feared that any party, or any opi- 
nion, will want its advocaie. This being the slate 
of things, it may be said, what have we lo^t? Aye; 
but what have our adversaries gained? Why this, 
that upon any new occasion of disaster and distress, 
the same violent language will be used on the pact 



149 

of the disaffected, and the ministers, on proposing 
new measures of coercion, will say of the bills of 
1819, as one of them said the other day of the bills 
of 1799 : " See ! the same principle has been alrea- 
dy introduced ; the downfall of freedom was then 
predicted as it is now, and yet liberty is still in full 
vigour.'* This they may say, and they may repeat, 
until at length they propose a veto on all public 
meetings, and a censorship on the press. And the 
same speeches which were made for the measures of 
the late session, will serve equally well to prove the 
danger of all petitioning, and the illegality of unli- 
censed printing. 

This result leads us to a consideration most unfa- 
vourable to liberty. It has been observed, with 
great truth, that the progress of the influence of the 
crown, is by slow and gradual advances, and that the 
resistance opposed by the people acts by sudden and 
occasional efforts. Thus, we see, that after the 
means of patronage have enabled the ministry to 
trench one by one upon the best privileges of free- 
dom, a moment of distress produces inquiry, and, by 
an unexpected blow, the nation wins a triumph 
which is equivalent to all that has been gained by 
the Court. But this advantage is at present entirely 
lost. Our inquiry on the influence of the Crown x 
leads us to the conclusion, that it is increasing ra- 
pidly and continually, and that the murmurs which it 
excites from time to time, serve only to produce 
13* 



150 

new restrictions upon liberty. Nor, indeed, can we 
ever expect that it will be otherwise. Whilst every 
opinion may be professed, some will alwa}s be found 
hostile to religion and to monarchy ; and, whenever 
the country is visited with distress, those upon whom 
misfortune falls, will for a time give a willing- ear to 
any thing which professes to be a plan for their re- 
lief. There are two or three questions more, which 
I shall endeavour shortly to despatch. The first is, 
what has hitherto been the influence of this progress 
upon the administration ? the second, what is likely 
to be the final fate of the constitution > and the third, 
how this fate may best be retarded ? 

With respect to the first question, we may observe, 
that from the accession of the late king", the great 
object of the Court has been to appoint its own mi- 
nisters : but the very success this scheme met with, 
has prevented that success from being complete. 

The Court, which led the nation into the Ame- 
rican war, and roused, unfortunately for itself, a 
spirit of rancour against America, showed itself in- 
capable of conducting affairs with any tolerable ma- 
nagement. The people took the alarm, and resumed 
the sovereignty ; but the Court, by cunning and de- 
lay, resisted the blow. 

Mr. Pitt was half the choice of the Court, half of 
the people; he sacrificed alternately to his two 
patrons, and for the sake of power, was willing to 
yield to prejudice in the closet, and clamour in the 



151 

country. He showed himself bold and resolute in- 
deed, when both the Court and country were wilh 
him, and he gained a victory over the house of Com- 
mons of his day, which showed to the king* that a 
minister need not always be made in Parliament. 
Of his successors, the present ministers, it is difficult 
at this moment to speak with justice; but without 
any needless harshness, it may be observed, that 
their pretensions to power are founded rather upon 
a knowledge of business, and habits of office, than 
upon any character for vigour and firmness as 
statesmen. Upon the great questions which parlia- 
ment is bound to consider, they take no manly or 
decisive course. Since the election of the last par- 
liament, they have agreed only upon two measures, 
the propriety of imposing new burdens upon the 
property, and the necessity of laying fresh restric- 
tions upon the liberty of the subject. The keenest 
of their opponents in vain tries to discover their line 
of policy; the most obsequious of their followers is 
astonished at the readiness with which they submit 
to modify their measures. Hence they have much 
diminished "the reverence for the king, that," ac- 
cording to Lord Clarendon, " is the best support of 
his royalty ;■" and hence, we may apply to them the 
observation of Cardinal de Retz upon his opponent 
Mazarin. "One of the greatest evils," he says, 
11 which the administration of Cardinal Mazarin has 
done to the monarchy, is the little attention he paid 



152 

Ho keeping* up its dignity. The contempt in which 
he held it succeeded, and this success is a still gTeater 
misfortune than the former ; for it covers and pal- 
liates the evils which will infallibly happen, sooner 
or later, to the state, from the habit which has been 
adopted.'' Such, in fact, is the government we have 
got; a government, like a boy's hoop, drivee first 
this way and then that, over the stones and through 
the mire, and sure to tumble down the first moment 
that it is not beaten along. Whenever such a mi- 
nistry shall fall, it will be entombed, not with the 
curses, but with the sneers of the country ; and at 
its entrance to the infernal regions, it will meet with 
the fate of Pier Soderini, a politician of its own 
stamp. 

La notte che mori Pier Soderini 
L'alma n'ando' dell' inferno alia bocca : 
E Pluto le grid6 : anima sciocca ! 
Ch'inferno ? va nel limbo dei bambini.* 

With respect to the fate of the constitution, it is 
somewhat difficult to say what it will be. The pro- 

* This is an epigram by Machiavel, of which the following 
is a translation : 

The night that Piero Soderini died, 
His soul went posting to the mouth of hell : 
"What? hell for you !" indignant Pluto cried; 
41 Go— and with brainless babes in limbo dw*U "•" 



153 

gress which we have described above, certainly 
tends directly to the euthanasia of Mr. Hume; but 
there are two circumstances of no slight magnitude, 
which will obstruct the final dissolution of our liber- 
ties. Both of these have been described as forward- 
ing' the growth of arbitrary power ; but they will 
both impede its complete triumph. 

The first is the national debt. However well in- 
clined the people may be to pay enormous sums in 
taxes, for a government in which they take a share, 
and to support wars of their own choice, they will 
never submit to pay so immense a tribute for a debt 
incurred by their ancestors, to a king who admits 
them to no portion of his power. The only thing 
which reconciles the people to the payment of sixty 
millions a year, is, the public discussion of political 
affairs in the House of Commons, and in the news- 
papers. 

The second circumstance which stands in the way 
of arbitrary power, is this very liberty of discussion. 
There certainly exists in this country, a very large 
mass of enlightened men, who, without taking a de- 
cided part in her political parties, entertain liberal 
ideas, and are favourable to the progress of know- 
ledge, and all the improvements of civilized life. It 
is not easy to conceive a nation passing from so ge- 
neral a diffusion of the light of knowledge, to the 
utter darkness of a despotism ; and this circumstance 



154 

formerly induced me to think the British Constitution 
was imm >rtal. 

Nor do I yet despair of seeing* the spirit of our 
rights overcome the fears of cur alarmists. There 
are numbers, certainly, who, satisfied with the quiet 
possession of their property, and terrified with the 
example of the French Revolution, are ready to 
surrender the remainder of the Constitution — 

For what more oft in nations grown corrupt, 
And by their vices brought to servitude, 
Than to love bondage more than liberty ; 
Bondage with ease than strenuous liberty ? 

The late elections, however, have shown that the 
great body of the people are firmly attached to their 
ancient laws. The next question is, huw the peo- 
ple, having" that object in view, may best be served ? 
Without presuming 1 to dictate on this subject, let us 
turn to some words of Mr. Burke, written in the 
year 1777, during the contest with America. The 
time at which they appeared, is thus described by the 
same author : — " Liberty is in danger of being made 
unpopular to Englishmen. The faults which grow 
out of the luxuriance of freedom appear much more 
shocking to us than the base vices which are gene- 
rated from the rankness of servitude. Accordingly, 
the least resistance to power appears more inexcu- 
sable in our eyes than the greatest abuses of autho- 
rity. All dread of a standing military force is look- 



155 

ed upon as a superstitious panic. We are taught to 
believe, that a desire of domineering over our 
countrymen is love to our country ; that those who 
hate civil war abet rebellion ; and that the amiable 
and conciliator}' virtues of lenity, moderation, and 
tenderness to the privileges of those who depend on 
this kingdom, are a sort of treason to the State." 
At this period, so momentous, and so like the present, 
let us see what was the advice of Mr. Burke : — 

" I am aware that the age is not what we all wish. 
But I am sure, that the only means of checking its 
precipitate degeneracy, is heartily to concur with 
whatever is the best in our time ; and to hare some 
more correct standard of judging what that best is, 
than the transient and uncertain favour of a Court. 
If once we are able to find, and can prevail on our- 
selves to strenghten an union of such men, whatever 
accidentally becomes indisposed to ill-exercised 
power, even by the ordinary operation of human 
passions, must join with that society ; and cannot 
long be joined without, in some degree, assimilating 
to it. Virtue will catch, as well as vice, by contact,, 
and the public stock of honest, manly principle, will 
daily accumulate. We are not too nicely to scru- 
tinize motives, as long as action is irreproachable. 
It is enough (and for a worthy man, perhaps, too 
much) to deal out its infamy to convicted guilt and 
declared apostacy. 

" This, gentlemen, has been, from the beginning, 



156 

the rule of my conduct ; and T mean to continue it, 
as long as such a body as I have described can by 
any possibility, be kept tog-ether; for I should think 
it the most dreadful of all offences, not only toward 
the present generation, but to all the future, if i 
were to do any thing- which could make the minutest 
breach in this great conservatory of free principles. 
Those who, perhaps, have the same intentions, but 
are separated by some little political animosities, 
will, I hope, discern at last how little conducive it 
is, to any rational purpose, to lower its reputation. 
For my part, gentlemen, from much experience, 
from no little thinking, and from comparing a great 
variety of things, I am thoroughly persuaded, that 
the last hope of preserving the spirit of the English 
Constitution, or of re-uniting the dissipated members 
of the English race upon a common plan of tran- 
quillity and liberty, does entirely depend on their 
firm and lasting union ; and, above all, on their 
keeping themselves from that despair, which is so 
very apt to fall on those whom a violence of charac- 
ter, and a mixture of ambitious views, do not sup- 
port through a long, painful, and unsuccessful strug- 

Of all questions which can occur, there are none 
so interesting as those which concern the length and 
constitution of Parliament. Every question which 
relates to it, the duration of Parliament, non-resi- 
dent freemen, diminishing expense, corrupt boroughs, 



157 

&c. &c. ought to be brought into close and succes- 
sive discussion. Many improvements might, no 
doubt, be made, without the slightest danger. But, 
in my humble opinion, it would not be a wise mea- 
sure to divide the country into districts, each of 
which is to return a member: such an alteration 
would, in fact, be a complete change in the form of 
government, and as such, it is the very catastrophe 
which I am anxious to avoid. When we are obliged 
to look out for a new Constitution, a more perfect 
one may, perhaps, be devised. But, for one, I should 
wish to avoid such a necessity, because, with all the 
burthens of unnecessary wars, I still perceive more 
freedom, in combination with justice and civilization, 
in England, than I ever saw, heard, or read of, in 
any other country. This is, in fact, the question to 
be decided ; for those who are bent upon a Radical 
Reform contend, and must contend, that we are 
suffering evils so great, and so far beyond common 
example, as fully to justify us in risking a change. 
This is a question I shall not stop to argue now ; 
and, indeed, it must be decided by the experience, 
knowledge, and feeling, of each individual. 

But I have another objection to dividing the 
country into representing districts. In my opinion, 
it is not wise to aim at perfection in political reforms. 
Man was not made for it. But in representation^ 
above all other political questions, perfection is im» 
possible to reach* If, then, we could have a majo« 
14 



158 

rity of popular representatives in the House ot 
Commons, ought we not to be satisfied ? Ought we 
to chop oil Gatton, or Old Sarum, merely because 
it is an imperfection, and destroys the symmetry of 
ideal beauty ? If we could reduce the decayed bo- 
roughs to form only a small portion of the House of 
Commons, instead of being, as they now are, the 
chief force of that assembly, should we not have 
taken a sufficient security for good government ? 
Ought no- something to be conceded for the sake of 
peace, with that large body of men, who are ready 
to fight to extremity against a theoretical plan of 
Reform ? 

On the other hand, those who are so violently 
prejudiced against the very name of Reform, should 
consider how many of the people are ready to serve 
under that banner ; and they should beware how 
thay increase those numbers, by protecting clear am! 
convicted abuses— Omnia dat quijusta negat. 



159 



MARRIAGE. 



In former times there was no subject upon which 
parents exercised a more complete authority over 
their children, than that of marriage. The sons and 
daughters of a great family were affianced when 
young, and a voluntary preference of their betrothed 
was as much out of the question, in this case, as in 
the choice of a dry nurse or a tutor. Such is still 
the fashion in many parts of the continent of Eu- 
rope ; and in some capitals, Florence especially, and 
one or two more in Italy, young unmarried women 
are never allowed to come into society, even for a 
ball, which seems an amusement peculiarly adapted 
to their age. But it is generally agreed by the en- 
lightened, that the English method is the best, and 
that the married persons who have had the opportu- 
nity of seeing the world when single, and of making 
their own choice, assisted only by the advice and the 
discernment of their parents, are most likely to be 



160 

happy. A farther view of the state of society in 
England may tend to throw some doubts upon the 
accuracy of this opinion. 

When a young- man comes into the English world, 
full of spirits, confidence, and latent love, the man- 
ner in which he is received depends entirely upon 
his future prospects. If he has no fortune, nor like- 
ly to have any, he is scarcely permitted to be agree- 
able in general conversation, and any merit he may 
have, like good actions performed by heathens, tends 
rather to bis detriment than otherwise. If, on the 
contrary, he is likely to enjoy a title and a fortune, 
his society is courted in exact proportion to h;s rank 
in the peerage, and the amount of his rent-roll. If 
he succeeds to these advantages by an unexpected 
death, the eyes of every mother in the land take a 
»ew view of him. He no sooner enters a ball-room, 
than their attention is attracted toward him ; the 
side glaoces, not of fair virgins, but of hoary ma- 
trons, aro directed to him ; and he may plainly see 
that he has the choice of the whole slave market. 
The truly affectionate mother, especially, may be 
seen making the most marked advances. She waits 
with evident impatience for the approach of the fat 
deer in the herd. Her manner to all others is short, 
abrupt, and uneasy ; she thinks it enough to throw 
out a flattering word or two to poor men of fashion. 
Her whole soul is bent upon the riches and title of 
Curtius ; and in order to obtain him, there is no in- 



161 

solence, no meanness, no exertion, no fatigue, no 
duplicity, no falsehood, which is not welcome and 
familiar to her maternal soul. The rest of the world 
stand in a ring*, whilst she is baiting her hook with 
flattery, and throwing out a net of pressing invita- 
tions. At last the poor young man, persuaded that 
the daughter is in love with him, and that it would be 
dishonourable in him to trifle with her affections, 
throws his person and his fortune at her feet. The 
one is accepted for the sake of the other, and a mar- 
riage, without love, founded upon fraud and delusion, 
is considered by the whole world as the happiest of 
all possible events. Such is the difference between 
the old and the new-fashioned way of making mar- 
riages. The latter has substituted for authority and 
duty a complete system of inveiglement, which be- 
gins by making society a cattle fair, and produces in 
the end deceit amongst girls, and suspicion in young 
men. 

The difference, in short, is nearly the same as that 
which may be observed between England and 
f ranee, in the method of recruiting the army. 
Frauce obliges her subjects to serve the state, or 
find a substitute. England, who abhors such cruelty, 
permits her officers to entice men into drunkenness, 
and persuade them to sell their lives in a moment of 
intoxication. If we were to put this into an allegory 
in the manner of the Spectator and Tatler, we might 
say that Cupid, it appears, can very seldom be per- 
14* 



162 

suaded to accompany Hymen. The god of marriage, 
then., for want of his companion, looks lo the society 
of Plutus and Minerva. But of late the goddess of 
wisdom has left him, and he has been seen in compa- 
ny with the'god of Thieves, who has been ordered 
by Jupiter to attend him. 

It remains now to be considered whether the mar- 
riages thus formed, are happier than those of our 
ancestors. The Moravians, it is well known, are so 
persuaded that choice is not the foundation on which 
to build in marriage, that their marriages are all 
made by lot; and their teachers affirm, that their 
unions are as happy as any in the world. This, it 
must be allowed, although it may suit the condition 
of that simple and devout people, would not be a 
good institution for any nation whose manners are so 
corrupt and licentious as those of all the nations of 
Europe now are. A man who is young and hand- 
some would be much mortified if he were to draw a 
vulgar ugly girl; and a celebrated beauty would enter 
into the state of matrimony without any great reve- 
rence for the seventh commandment, if she were to 
draw lot thirty-four, which turned out to be a super- 
annuated and ruined beau, instead of lot sixty, the 
youth upon whom her heart was fixed. But, laying 
aside all thoughts of following the example of the 
Moravians, it may be questioned, whether the liberty 
of choice produces as much happiness in marriage 
as might be supposed. Persons of moderate fortune 



163 

in the one sex, and moderate beauty in the oilier, 
may, indeed, have time to study the characters of 
those they would wish to marry. But it is not so 
with a man or a woman who is supposed to be a prize 
in this great lottery. Sporus, who is what is called 
in the world a great fortune, no sooner beheld the 
fair Lisetta, than he was struck by her beauty. Her 
mother no sooner perceived that he was struck by 
her beauty, than she put every art in practice to 
catch him : he was scarcely acquainted, when he 
found himself obliged to propose. After he was 
married, upon getting" a little better acquainted with 
his wife, he found that she had a temper much more 
wearing than what is usually called bad ; a crying, 
whining tone upon every thing- that happens ; a con- 
tinual complaint, even of things done on purpose to 
please her ; a perpetual narrative of grievances that 
have happened, or grievances that are to happen. 
In short, poor Sporus is so worn out with his wife, 
that he does nothing* but repeat the observation of 
the old Scotch lady, " that she wondered where the 
ill wives came from, all the lassies are so good hu- 
moured." 

What are we to expect, it may be asked, from a 
system which teaches girls in the bloom of their 
simplicity, to disguise all their feelings ? to conceal 
the preference they have, and pretend to that which 
they have not ? What can be expected, but that 
having practised deceit before marriage to procure 
a husband, they should employ it afterwards to con- 



164 

ceal a lover? No sooner is a young girl brought 
into the world, than she is taught dissimulation, 
avarice, ambition, and dishonest love : her passions 
are all awakened, and it is no wonder if the husband 
should become the sufferer. According to the old 
fashion, a girl went from one duty to another, from 
obedience in the house of her father, to obedience 
in the house of her husband. As for love, quite as 
much as is required for married people, naturally fol- 
lows marriage ; as naturally as a vine grows on the 
elm agairrst which it is planted, does a woman, who 
is fresh and innocent, love the man to whose person 
and fortunes she has been united. As for that vio- 
lent, unjust, irritating, magnifying passion usually 
caijed love, which is the foundation of many of our 
present marriages, it cannot be said to be a good 
basis for happiness. After a year or two of posses- 
sion it is worn out, and then, when the husband 
becomes indifferent to his wife, or, perhaps, disco- 
vers in her a thousand faults, which his short-sighted 
passion had taken for beauties ; the wife, on the 
other hand, accustomed to tenderness, mortified at 
the decay of her power, and in want of a strong at- 
tachment, is open to the first assailant who offers the 
adoration she has ceased to receive. 

We loved and we loved, as well as we could, 
Till the love was loved out of us both ; 
When pleasure is fled, marriage is dead, 
For pleasure first made it an oath. 



165 

Such is the history of Henry and Julia. But 
hitherto we have only spoken of love matches be- 
tween persons of equal rank. Let us now consider 
the case of a young- heir who falls in love with an 
apothecary's daughter. It is very well to sa} r that 
love levels all ranks. Rank has its revenge. These 
marriages generally take one of two roads : either 
the husband becomes the tyrant of his wife, and 
makes amends for the honour he has renounced by 
turning- a companion into a slave; or else the wife 
detaches the husband from all his old connexions 
and natural associates, to place him in the society 
of her own relations and friends. And it is impossi- 
ble it should be otherwise. Even love, strong as he 
is, cannot long hold by the single anchor of beauty. 
A thousand ties of similar friendships, of similar oc- 
cupations, of similar habits, and even of similar 
amusements, are necessary to connect the man and 
woman who are chained to each other for life. 

From all these considerations, we should be apt to 
conclude that the parental authority, although abused 
in former times, is still of great service in determin- 
ing upon proper unions for young persons. Whilst 
a lover is blind to all the faults of his mistress, and 
converts her one merit of beauty into every other — 
sense, wit, temper, reading, just as it suits him; 
whilst he mistakes the readiness common to all wo- 
men for an uncommon share of penetration, and con- 
strues the gracious air with which his mistress hears 



166 

him talk, into solidity of judgment and sweetness of 
disposition ; a father or a mother can make use of 
their reason, and perceive the want of sense or of 
temper, which is totally invisible to an unexperien- 
ced and partial observer. 

However, it may be said, that after all, the fact 
ought to be attended to more than any reasoning on 
this subject, and that it is generally acknowledged, 
that the marriages of the French and Italians are 
less solemnly observed than those of the English, 
The reply to this is, that the marriages on the Con- 
tinent are not unhappy, because they are formed by 
the parents, but for several other good reasons. The 
chief reason is, that men marry in those countries 
before they are disposed to settle, or, to use another 
English phrase, " before they have sown their wild 
oats." The consequence is, that about a year after 
the marriage, the husband betakes himself to the 
same company, and the same amusements or vices, 
which an English gentleman follows before he leaves 
school, and on his first entrance into the world. 
The English gentleman having early satiated him- 
self with the gross enjoyments of the senses, looks 
out for a companion, and endeavours, with all his 
power, to make his home comfortable. The foreign 
husband, on the other hand, treating his wife with 
neglect, or perhaps worse, indulges his volatile in- 
clinations, and is quite satisfied with having had the 
droit du signeur. A fresh lover is soon at hand, the 



167 

wife looks around her, sees the fashion to be in fa- 
vour of lovers, and is soon contented to follow the 
crowd. It can scarcely be denied, that the virtue 
of women depends upon the conduct of men. The 
Hippia of Juvenal was the countrywoman of Lucre- 
tia and Cornelia ; but in the mean time, the Romans 
had conquered the world — % 

Saevior armis 
Luxuria incubuit, victttmque ulscisciturorbem. 

Dr. Johnson, it is true, maintained, that as the 
great mischief to be feared, is the confusion of pro- 
geny, adultery is a much less crime in a man than in 
a woman ; and that a woman would not be justified 
who should leave her husband, because she had de- 
tected him in an intrigue with her chambermaid. 
But this is a coarse manner of judging : from the 
moment a wife knows of her husband's intrigue, al! 
the delicacy, all the sacredness of marriage is over. 
Her fear of censure, or sense of religion, may pre- 
vent transgression ; but her heart is gone away from 
her oath for ever. 



168 



ORDERS OF KNIGHTHOOD. 



Brussels. 

Going, yesterday, with Frimont into a coffee- 
house in this city, he desired me to ohserve four men 
who were sitting 1 at a table near us ; they were talk- 
ing- very loud of the kings of Europe, and showed 
very small respect for those wise sovereigns. Ac- 
cording 1 to them, one was a tyrant, another a despot, 
a third an ungrateful blockhead, and a fourth a swin- 
dler. Astonished at such language, I asked an ex- 
planation. " The first," says Frimont, " whose 
eyes roll so wildly, and who is now spitting on the 
floor, was one of the main promoters of the resist- 
ance to Bonaparte at Madrid : he was wounded five 
times in the cause of Ferdinand, and would now 
have been in his prisons in chains had he not made 
a timely escape ; his crime consisted in making a 
speech against the Inquisition. The next is a 
Frenchman who distinguished himself in overturn- 
ing Bonaparte in 1815; he was rewarded and ca- 



169 

ressed at first by the Bourbons, and remained quiet, 
till he was banished by the amnesty law, for his be- 
haviour in 179 2, The next wa< active in organizing 
the societies in Prussia, which liberated the country, 
and secured the throne to the present king-; but hav- 
ing been an object of suspicion ever since, he is 
come here to publish a work on the extinction of the 
military spirit in Europe. The fourth is a hair- 
dresser, who was a favourite of one of the deposed 
Napoleon Queens." 

" Well," said I , "it is then no wonder they do 
not like their sovereigns ; but, see, there are a party 
of gentlemen decorated with orders; amongst them, 
as Christian knights, truth, constancy, valour, and 
generosity may be expected to prevail. Let us 
hear what they say." My friend smiled ; but, heed- 
less of him, I joined the company, and heard the 
most enthusiastic praises of all that every govern- 
ment had done, was doing, or was going to do : they 
did not even omit to speak of the Dey of Algiers 
with the respect due to a crowned head ; and one of 
them was very eloquent on the legitimate imperial 
race of China. My friend hinted to me to ask their 
names ; accordingly, I inquired of my neighbour the 
name of the gentlemen sitting opposite, who, no 
doubt, from his large star, must be a person of merit. 
" You are right," said he, " in general, to suppose 
an order is the reward of merit, as it is in my own 
nase ; but that gentleman is a Genoese of great 
15 



170 

fortune, who having been a sad democrat, left his 
party in order to obtain that star from the King of 
Sardinia. " I soon left this side of the table, and 
went over to the Genoese, to inquire concerning' 
my former neighbour. " Indeed," said he, " he is a 
wretched fellow : he was formerly a man of science 
in France, and distinguished for that kind of thing; 
but now he pretends to live with gens comme ilfaitt, 
and in order to do it, got that decoration for abusing 
Bonaparte, who was a favourer of science, and 
praising the Bourbons, who discourage it : I won- 
der they give their orders to any but men of rank 
and fortune*" 

The next name I inquired, T was told, •* The gen- 
tleman is a member of the Belgian chamber of depu- 
ties. He ran away at the battle of Waterloo ; but 
obtained that cross for voting in favour of Holland, 
against his native country.' 1 

Tired of such characters, I took up my hat — 
44 You now see," said my friend, as we were going 
away, " that orders are not always the reward of 
merit, and even are sometimes given to cover the 
want of it. We are apt to despise the South-sea 
islanders for exchanging their pigs and yams, for 
beads and red cloth ; but you see that, for stars 
and ribands, red, green, and bine, the Europeans 
will truck their fortune, their character, and even 
their liberty." 



171 



THE WANDERING JEW. 



I have now spent nearly eighteen hundred years 
upon the earth. It is a scene of suffering", and I 
have suffered — it is a scene of sin, and I have sinned 
—but it is also the dwelling of many virtues, and I 
have learnt to practise them. 

My first steps, from the period which I dare not 
do more than hint at, were toward Rome ; my first 
wishes were to erase from my memory the words 
which yet thrilled throughout my whole frame. For 
this purpose, I wished to plunge into a life of plea- 
sure ; and with health and pleasure I imagined that 
which was meant as a curse might prove a blessing. 
The words deceived. Often have I envied the 
miserable invalid, occupied in keeping unbroken the 
slender thread of existence, and finding, in the 
means of preserving life, life itself. Often have I 
longed to be in the place of the fasting hermit, vrho 



172 

is consoled for all his privations by visions of immor- 
tal bliss. 

Yet, for some years, nay, for many years, in the 
usual human sense of those words — (but I am not 
human; even my vocabulary is separated from man- 
kind; — for many years, then, I enjoyed the sensual 
delights which women, and luxury, and good cheer 
can give But there came a time when these en- 
joyments faded to give joy. The object was the 
same, the power the same, the indulgence the same ; 
but the zest was gone — the sensation was blunted, and 
felt no more. 1 became, as an English author has 
described the Duke of Buckingham, as impatient of 
pleasure as other men are of misfortune. I tried 
every alley and corner of Armida's garden, but the 
enchantment was fbd. For the truth is, that much 
of the pleasure enjoyed by debauched men does not 
arise from the mere gratification of the senses, but 
from the excitement produced by novelty and by 
strangeness. It is for this that we see men of plea- 
sure fly perpetually from one woman to another ; it 
is for this that they live by night and sleep by day. 
A farce writer has hit their character very well, 
when he makes a party of young men give a guinea 
a-piece to the waiter, "just by way of surprising the 
rascal!"' For the sake of this excitement, too, young 1 
men of the town used formerly to attack the watch- 
man and insult the police But in this, as in every 
other respect, rakes of a lower order have a prodi- 



173 

gious advantage. They issue from the gin-house to 
rob every jeweller in the city, or to commit a theft 
in the very presence of the officers of justice, or to 
conduct a burglary of unexampled difficulty. If 
success crowns their enterprise, they are at once en- 
riched, applauded, and caressed; they celebrate 
their triumph with their companions and their mis- 
tresses. They play for glory, and life is their stake. 
These reflections might have sufficed to disgust me 
with pleasure. How could I feel a delight which 
the lowest of caitiffs and of convicts taste in a much 
higher degree ? And then, how could I hope to find 
novelty and excitement for ever in the same pur- 
suit? Perpetual agitation has as much monotony as 
perpetual repose. And then, again, how bitterly 
did I feel the difference of my lot from that of other 
men! The most dissolute of mortals cannot exhaust 
pleasure much faster than pleasure exhausts him. 
If he do not fall a victim to his disorders, he changes 
his pursuits. His tired body, neither fit for great 
efforts, nor capable of strong excitement, leaves him 
the tranquil sensuality of middle age, and sometimes 
allows his mind to take the sovereignty and open to 
him a new career, happier than the former. For 
there is a happiness suited to each age, which the 
wise man knows how to seize. He is neither angry, 
that, at fort} 7 , he takes no pleasure in marbles ; nor 
does he repine at seventy, that he can no longer 
take the same violent exercise in fox-hunting. He 
15* 



174 

follows the series of nature, and as he becomes tired 
of one pleasure, nature opens to him another. But 
I — I was still young-, still vigorous, still ardent in all 
my movements and desires; the want .still pained 
"my breast," but became no " source of pleasure 
when redressed." 1 was an outcast; the highest re- 
finements were to me no luxury ; the gayest carou- 
sals gave me no mirth ; those who had affected my 
heart perished in the throng; but even before they 
fell, I could not enjoy the solace of their society 
when the first flotv of love was past. My strength 
still prompted me to action, and action made me sick 
of moving; I was restless, without being busy. 

In this state I endeavoured to occupy myself with 
books. I found great pleasure in my first reading 
of the poets, and when I took up one of fame, whom 
I had never read, I gazed upon it with a delight 
which few other things (have given me, " Here/' 
I said to myself, " is a coffer full of happy hours," 
and my imagination exaggerated the beauties of 
the work I was about to read, far beyond those of 
all I had i;ead before. With the same pleasure, loo. 
1 read Archimedes and Euclid, and the astronomers 
of the court of the Ptolemies. But these occupied 
only a small part of my prolonged life. When I had 
done with them, I began upon philosophy, and could 
1 have found au interest in the works which treat of 
these subjects, I might long have been entertained 
with the variety of arguments, and the different 



175 

theories on the same question. But I was dis- 
gusted with the perversity which would persist in 
resting the laws of mind and morals upon partial and 
exaggerated views. One philosopher maintains, that 
we ought to throw off the fetters which, he says, are 
imposed upon us by the wants of the body ; that we 
ought to raise our minds to the contemplation of 
truth and falsehood, good and evil, by making our- 
selves totally independent of physical appetites. He 
tells us, that wealth and grandeur, so far from being 
objects of pursuit, are only sources of unhappiness, 
ignorance, and vice. When we have listened awhile 
to him, up starts another sage, also calling himself 
philosopher, who says, that we were made for plea- 
sure, and counts learning and virtue only as the 
pleasures of a sensible and refined man. These two 
opinions have divided the world : Socrates and Plato, 
and the Christian Fathers, and the rigid divines, and 
Taylor and Pascal, and the Hindoo Saints, have 
adopted the one ; the followers of Epicurus, and 
Montaigne, and Chesterfield, have maintained the 
other. Now, what man of plain sense does not see 
that the truth lies between these opinions r that we 
may safely indulge in the pleasures that are given to 
the indulgence of our appetites, provided we do it 
so moderately as not to interfere with the perform- 
ance of justice and benevolence, and the study of 
truth ? and, on the other hand, that all considera- 
tions of pleasure? or even of a generous impulse. 



176 

must be thrown aside, when we are called to the dis- 
charge of a moral duty ? 

It is the same with nearly all the speculative opi- 
nions upon which the world have remained long 
divided. For instance, predestination aud free 
will. If a man is predestined to be a villain, and to 
suffer eternal torments for being so, the Deity can- 
not be called, toward him at least, a benevolent 
Being. If, on the other hand, man has entire (ree 
will, that is to say, totally independent of motives 
and circumstances, the Deity can have no pre- 
science. The probability is, then, (and in these 
things a probability is all we can hope for,) that man 
is chiefly determined by certain circumstances of 
birth, country, and education, which do not depend 
on his own choice; but that there is no single case 
in which the individual may not, by exerting the 
powers of his own mind, defeat all those circumstan- 
ces. The prescience of the Deitj' still remains ; but 
is general, and not particular. We may suppose 
God knowing what Alexander or Newton has done, 
and what mankind will do.* I read at this time the 
Phxdo of Plato ; but how inconclusive are the rea- 
sonings! He wishes to prove the immortality of the 
soul ; and the first of his two chief arguments is, that 
as the soul is nobler than the body, and as the body 



* " It is impossible but that offences must come, but wo to 
him through whom thev come." 



177 

lasts some time after death, the soul must last much 
longer. But what has this to do with it? The body 
lasts, not as body, for it has none of the functions of 
a body, but as a part of inert, inanimate matter. 
Would it not have been more rational to say, it was 
probable that the body, which is of baser stuff, should 
be converted into other substances ; aud that the 
soul, which is totally unlike the body, should have a 
destiny totally different ? Nor is the answer which 
Socrates gives to his objector just : The objector 
says, H The harmony of a lyre is much nobler than 
the wood and string's; yet.it would not be just to 
say, when the lyre is broken, that because the^wood 
and strings remain, the harmony must live much 
longer.' y Socrates answers this by a long* story of 
the lyre producing discord, as well as harmony ; but 
he only clenches the objection ; for the soul alsj 
has its discord as well as its harmony. If Crites had 
said the music of the lyre, instead of its harmony, 
his objection would have been unanswered. The 
true answer to his objection, however, is, that mu*ic 
and harmony are merely sounds made by wood and 
strings, when considered with respect to the lyre ; 
and that their beauty and nobleness are derived en- 
tirely from our minds. The second great argument 
of Socrates is, that as the notion of equality must 
always go along with the number two, so the notion 
of life must always go along with the notion of the 
soul. And that which has always lire is immortal. 



178 

and what is immortal is indestructible. Now, it is 
very true, that life and the soul are always seen to- 
gether ; but so are life aud the beating of the pulse : 
and it is one and the same thing, to say his pulse 
beats, and be lives ; therefore, by this argument, the 
beating of the pulse is immortal. 

Yet I perceived in the words of Socrates, as re- 
ported by Plato, many sublime truths ; and their be- 
ing mixed with such erroneous reasoning, in the 
wisest of Grecian sages, went far to convince me of 
the necessity of Revelation. 

I was now sick of my knowledge, or rather of my 
own ignorance and that of all the world, when one 
day my attention was called by a woman, still young, 
but with premature age in her features, who stopped 
me, to beg relief. I turned from her several times, 
when at last she said bitterly, " Sir, you are the 
cause." I looked at her, and stopt involuntarily ; 
she begged my pardon with tears ; and when I told 
her to proceed, she told a tale which drove a knife 
into my heart. She had been a young and happy 
wife, when a procuress had employed all her arts to 
seduce her for my pleasures. She succeeded but too 
well ; I paid the money, and thought no more of it ; 
but she, first won by the demon of avarice, and then 
given up to the demon of lust, went from fraility to 
vice, till she had ruined herself and all her family. 
Her husband was dead ; her children starving. I 
relieved their necessities ; the poor woman again 



119 

flourished, and lived to repair her faults. The atten- 
tion which this incident roused, and the pleasure 
which the result afforded, discovered to me a new 
vein of pleasures, which 1 flattered myself were 
purer, and less disturbed than any I had ever felt. 
From this time I entered upon a fresh career ; I 
opened the prison to the debtor; sent physicians and 
medicines to the sick ; and gave food and money to 
the indigent. This occupation for some time re- 
lieved the tedium and irksomeness of my*" long* pil- 
grimage. But my bounty, bestowed without discri- 
mination, and guided only by feeling, was often bar- 
ren of good, and sometimes not unproductive of 
evil. My hand often yielded to importunity the re* 
lief which should have been given to merit conceal- 
ed from sight, and indigence blushing to be known. 
My alms, directed by indolence, were often given to 
idleness ; and rude profligacy obtained what was due 
to industrious virtue The effects, instead of raising 
and swelling my heart, as at first, were often painful 
and embarrassing. One, whom I had relieved, as I 
thought, from the depth of poverty, and who came 
every day to utter his gratitude and receive fresh 
benefits, turned out an impostor, and finished by 
robbing my house. Some prisoners, to whom I had 
given too large a sum of money, bought arms, with 
which they murdered their keeper, and afterwards 
set the whole town of Rome in alarm. Every day 
revealed to me a thousand ungrateful returns, and 



180 

misapplied benefits, bringing" me at tbe same time as 
man}' cew applications. I grew weary of it. The 
title of the Benevolent, given me by the people, 
which had at first pleased and flattered me, grew 
nauseous to my ear. I left the place, and went, or 
rather flew, to -a country of barbarians. Tnere I 
tossed and tormented myself, till better thoughts 
came into my head. 1 perceived that feeling, with- 
out judgment, is an unsafe guide. I passed a severe 
censure on myself; I said, that to throw money to 
the right and left, without inquiry, was the mere in- 
dulgence of a selfish lust of praise. I held no hu- 
manity real, which did not walk between discretion 
and exertion. Benevolence, to be useful, should be 
wise and pai»s-taking ; nor is it even then a virtue 
which is all sufficient. A man may be charitable to 
the poor, without repressing any of his passions, 
without controlling any of his vices, and even with 
a full indulgence of hatred to his rivals, and profli- 
gacy in his own conduct. He alone who has com- 
bated with bad dispositions, has the right to speak of 
the triumph of virtue. — Enough of this; lam not 
going to pronounce my own panegyric. The fol- 
lowing extracts from my journal will tell my story 
faithfully. 

KOME. 

How magnificent is the city of Rome. Its splen- 
dor for a moment dazzled my senses, and benumbed 



181 

my grief; but it has quickly returned with increased 
pain. The thousands of human beings whom I see 
every moment of the day, seem as strange to me as 
the flies and the birds. I am not a passenger in the 
same ship : I am worse than a stranger. I wish 
them all struck with the same judgment as myself; 
I wish the world a desert* every one of its cities a 
Carthage, and every Roman citizen a Marius— yet 
I bear the Romans no ill will ; they have conquered, 
they have triumphed j they flourish, and enjoy. I 
hate the triumphant and the prosperous— yet they 
are vicious and corrupt: in that I rejoice; their 
manners may afford me pleasure and satisfaction. 

Kal. Jan. — I have found an infinite satisfaction 
in observing the manners of the women* They are 
not here, as in Athens, confined to a separate part 
of the house, and suffered to see no men. They are 
allowed a free commerce with their acquaintanc 
and form a part of every polished society. T 
much as this tended to improve and r r 
minds, whilst the ancient simplicity re^ ^ so 

much it has tended to degrade th^ ttia t the 

whole people has degenerater 1 tfie women, 

forming the light and del- jace f society* 

are more easily infect^ ^ change in morals 

and behaviour; *' akness affords no arms 

against the inf- a of a v j c i ous fashion : and as 

the corrupt ue best things is the worst of all, 

so fern' est y an( j p ur ity, once undermined, 

16 



182 

there ensues the grossest abandonment of duty, and 
the most open violation of decency. An instance 
occurs just now to my mind: — Hippia, the wife of 
Fabricius Vejento, a senator, forgetting all the 
proprieties of her sex, in the lust of an ignoble at- 
tachment, has gone to Africa in the train of a gladia- 
tor. But I could mention a thousand such instan- 
ces; even the commonest brothels are frequented 
by women of the highest rank in Rome. The gay 
lovers, or rather libertines of Rome, make no scru- 
ple, during dinner, and in the presence of company, 
of carrying on their intercourse with their mis- 
tresses, in the most indecent manner. Yet it is 
natural, and even pardonable, that women should in- 
dulge a passion which seems to be so essential a part 
of their existence, that if I were asked to define 
a woman, I should say, it is a creature tiiat loves. 
They have other vices that are more disgusting, and 
which, therefore, I delight more in seeing them 
w^actise. For example, there is not a noble wife 
in RomtT *- Da * £ oes to dinner till she has taken her 
wine emetic aad P re P are(1 herself an appetite by 
means that woula / ake U awa ? from the dau S hter of 
a ploughman. 

I lately sa* an instance J* the manner ' that even 
the youngest and most iimoc^ nt are P re P ared t0 
bear (he sight, even of the greate. ?t Cr,mes - l WaS 
present, by the favour of a freedm. ZB > at a feast of 
Nero. Britaanicus, the son of Claudia. % * as Slttinff ' 



183 

as is usual, at a smaller table opposite to the Em- 
peror, An officer, appointed for the purpose, tasted 
all his victuals : he called for drink — it was too hot ; 
a slave poured in a cooler liquor; that liquor must 
have contained poison, for he had scarcely put it to his 
lips again, when he' fell back dead.* Those who 
were sitting by got up in horror ; but Octavia, his 
own sister, though yet young, was able to compose 
her countenance ; and when Nero declared it wat 
only a fit, the gayety of the feasfwas resumed. 

It is a natural consequence of the total worthless- 
ness of their women, that the poets who write love 
verses should be much at a loss what to say. Pro- 
pertius, though a very pretty writer, falls into great 
inconsistencies in trying to paint the idol of his una* 
gination with the features of his real mistress. In 
one elegy he denies her permission to kiss even her 
mother, that he may not be jealous ; whilst in others 
he owns that she cannot be constant three days, and 
that he has no sooner left Rome, than her bed is oc- 
cupied by another. 

****** 

I supped yesterday with Atticus. As he is an idle 
aud luxurious man, he supped at an earlier hour 
than other people. Every thing was in a magnifi- 
cent stile. Having previously bathed and anointed, 
we lay down about three o'clock on beds of tortoise 

» Tac. Ann. lib. xiii. c. 16. 



184 

shell, to a table of which the support was ivory. 
Each guest was crowned with a garland of roses, 
and the ceiling was so contrived as to open from 
time to time, and let fall showers of perfume upon 
the room. There was a great profusion of sow's 
belly, and thrushes, and phaenicopterus, and many of 
the dishes were deliciously prepared with honey. 
The liver of a goose, however, dressed with mulsus, 
milk, and fig, was the best dish I tasted. Yet it 
moved even my pity, to see a poor friend of the 
family to whom the good dishes were never offered : 
he had not even the good bread which was put to 
more favoured guests, and happening by chance to 
taste his wine, I found it execrable. The best part 
of his dinner consisted of a kind of bad crab. I won- 
der what should induce him to come. The conver- 
sation certainly could offer no inducement ; it was in 
the usual stile of this great aristocracy, stately, cor- 
rect, and dull. The dinner was as barren of ideas, 
as it was copious in dishes. At long pauses, and in 
short phrases, a few words were said upon these last ; 
as, "This turbot is excellent." — "Very good in- 
deed." " The wild venison is very well drest." — 
" I think it is." — Sometimes, too, a conversation of 
ten minutes took place upon jewels, which all the 
company understood ; but the subjects which alone 
seemed to excite any interest, were wrestling and 
wine. I have acquired much information on these 
two subjects, and an indigestion. 



185 

I have been at another great dinner. There was 
a Greek who talked much, and with great ingenuity. 
I thought it very pleasant ; but after he was gone, 
every one said that he was very vulgar and impu- 
dent. It seems these Romans like nothing but 
sound sense, and that only in the Forum or the 
Senate. The hours of dinner they devote exclu- 
sively to eating, and think their sense of tasting will 
be less fine, if they employ their attention on wit 
or anecdotes at the same time ; perhaps they are 

right. 

* # * * * • 

I was present lately at an entertainment which 
promised very different fare from that which I have 
described above. It was a supper given by Lucan 
to Quintilian, Statius, Juvenal, and other wits. 
Lucan is very rich, and his supper was splendid ; 
but for amusement it afforded little. Every one 
seemed resolved not to speak unless he could 
shine, and the conversation fell entirely into the 
hands of Paullinus, who, being a great talker, did 
nothing but entertain us with an account of his 
journey to Baiae, and the effects of the hot bath upon 
his own constitution. Telesinus, who sate next to 
me, said, in a low voice, " If this man had travelled! 
over Asia and Africa, and was now relating very 
curious things which he had seen and heard, he 
would excite the envy and hatred of the greater part 
16* 



186 

of the company; but as he is a silly fellow, and only 
talks nonsense, no one disputes with him the place of 
orator of the table." 

Some one of the company was praising the method 
of the rich men of Rome, of having a farm adjoining" 
their villas ; on which a young man of the name of 
Tacitus said, " Yes, it is an admirable custom ; it 
puts one in mind, at the same time, of the virtues of 
their ancestors and their own vices." 

Upon the whole, the day passed disagreeably. 
Quintilian was out of humour at being asked to 
meet Juvenal, and Statins was evidently revolving 
in his mind a comparison between the splendor of 
Lucan's table, and the empty honour which his pub- 
lic recitations of the Thebaid produce. I asked 
each of the guests separately, his opinion of the 
Pharsalia, which seems to me to contain more fine 
• passages and energetic thoughts than any work of 
the day : such as the comparison betwen Cxsar and 
Pompey ; the passage of the soul of Pompey into 
those of Brutus and Cato, &c. &c. 

(Here follow more than a dozen quotations.) 
No one, however, was of my opinion. One said 
that Lucan was a very worthy man, but knew no- 
thing of poetry ; another, that his taste was execra- 
ble ; a third, that all that was gx>od in him was in 
the first half of the first book ; and a fourth whisper- 
ed in my ear, that the story had been much better 
versified by a friend of his, whose poem had not 



187 

been fairly read through by any of his readers* but 
himself. 

A FIRE. 

Kal. Sextiles. — A fire has broken out which 
threatens to destroy this immense town. I was pay- 
ing- my respects to Flavius Sabinus, who was taking 
his exercise in a carriage under a covered portico, 
when an account was brought us of a violent fire 
that was consuming some houses on the Cseiian hill. 
He immediately threw himself from his carriage, 
and we both ran to the spot ; for, as his house is at 
the back of the Cselian, he reasonably feared that 
it might be in danger. Upon arriving there, we 
found that the fire had begun in the Circus, and, 
catching some shops, had already been carried a 
great way by the wind. The narrow streets, and 
high houses, afford a great advantage to the flames. 
It was curious to see the people who came out of 
these filthy habitations ; many of them seemed not 
to have seen the light of day for years ^ their clothes 
grew as it were to their skin, and their limbs, unu- 
sed to the weight of their bodies, scarcely supported 
them ; they turned their hollow eyes on every side, 
as if uncertain where they were, and what happened 
to them : yet I observed that when they recovered 
their senses, they were much more anxious about 
their rotten moveables, than the senators for the 



133 

safely of their tables of gold and silver. But the 
very poor had a more pressing- care. Multitudes 
were deprived on a sudden of their only means of 
subsistence ; and some, despairing 1 of succour, threw 
themselves again into the flames from which they 
had been rescued, The streets were filled with 
children crying for their parents, and old men blind 
and helpless from age. Most of these, either mis- 
taking the way by which they could escape, were 
surrounded and devoured by the flames, or over- 
thrown and trampled upon by a mob of ruffians, who 
were searching for plunder. An old woman of some 
fortune, was entirely deserted by her slaves in the 
beginning of the tumult: she loaded herself with 
gold, and had already passed the fire, when she was 
knocked down by some of a gang of plunderers. [ 
saw one of them, after she had been stripped, throw 
her back into the flames. In another part, a slave 
devoted his life to save the child of his master ; he 
threw him into his mother's arms, and overcome with 
the torture of his wounds, ran himself upon a sword. 
]No aid was brought to quench the flames. The 
soldiers of the city guard ran about disguised with 
the mob, and partook of the spoils. At intervals 
these wretches gave a shout, as it were, of encour- 
agement, which formed a contrast with the cries of 
women and children. When the fire reached a 
great palace, the clamour was redoubled, and some 
of the most unpopular patricians, so far from getting 



189 

aid against the fire, had the misery of seeing* lighted 
torches thrown into their houses. They themselves 
fled in different directions out of the town. Yet, in 
the midst of all the clamour, as T was passing through 
a quarter of the town remote from the fire, I saw 
the people lying in the sun, and eating their fried 
fish as if nothing had happened ; perhaps, to-morrow 
the same calamity will reach their own dwellings. 

Upon the whole, it was the most amusing day I 
have passed in Rome. 

15. Idus. Nero came in from Antium just as his 
own palace was taking fire ; he has ordered his 
gardens to be thrown open to the people, and tem- 
porary buildings to be erected. He has even sent 
for furniture from Ostia, and lowered the price of 
bread to a mere trifle : yet an absurd rumour has 
spread amongst the people, that he played the " Fire 
of Troy," whilst his own town was meeting the 
same fate. 

23. It is now said that Nero set fire to the city 
himself j he has taken a prompt and decisive resolu- 
tion. " It is necessary," he said to his freedman, 
" to dispel this rumour, and convince the people that 
I am ready to punish. The idle opinion they have 
taken up, must be refuted by a great and public 
measure. Let the Christians be condemned and put 
to death immediately." 

24. The order of the Emperor has been fully exe- 
cuted ; I went to-day to glad my eyes with the sight. 



190 

It was diverting- to see some of the victims shut up 
in the skins of wild beasts, pursued by dogs, and 
torn to pieces ; others were crucified, and I lold 
them, as they groaned with pain, that they ought to 
be satisfied, since they were treated in the same 
manner as their God. As the night approached, 
fires were kindled, and a number of them thrown 
into the flames. The people do not consider them 
as guilty, and they are looked on with compassion ; 
but as it was a dark night, and the fires were very 
splendid, a great multitude attended the spectacle. 
1 long beheld their sufferings with real delight. 
I did not lose one of their cries, nor pass unobserved 
one of their contortions ; and when their bones were 
consumed, I scattered them in the air, that none 
might preserve their remains. Nero was there, and 
mixed in the crowd in the disguise of a coachman. 
****** 
It is astonishing to see the rapid and magnificent 
creation of the new city. Of the fourteen quarters 
into which old Rome was divided, three were burnt 
to the ground, and seven more reduced to ruins. 
Nero has shown no small degree of judgment in his 
directions for rebuilding the town. Each house is 
separate and independent, forming what is called an 
island. For every house built within a certain time, 
of a kind of stone which is not affected by fire, like 
the commou tufo, the Emperor grants a premium. 
He also engages to build the porticoes in front of 
every house, from his own funds : add to this, that 



191 

the streets are broad, that each house has a yard 
and that water is brought to fixed places for trie 
convenience of extinguishing- fires. 

So much for the public ; but Nero has not been 
less careful for, or less generous to himself. He has 
built an immense palace, which contains every luxu- 
ry that a fertile imagination could suggest to a sen- 
sual disposition. Gold, and silver, and ivory, are 
the common materials of the furniture. The co- 
lumns of marble from Alexandria, are, through a 
wantonness of decoration, incrusted wi(h marble 
from Numidia. The ceilings of the supper-rooms 
change with every service — now exhibiting a face of 
glass, and now of painting. But one is still more 
surprised on going* into the garden. Three of the 
seven hills of Rome are devoted to this purpose. 
Here the trees are so planted as to form in a short 
time aa impenetrable shade ; there the ground is 
left open, and leaves a long prospect of lakes, mea- 
dows, and temples. In some parts are confined the 
beasts of the three quarters of the globe; in others 
the various plumage of a thousand birds delight and 
dazzle the eyes. The magnificence of the baths is 
indescribable. Even those in the city, built for the 
use of the people, are adorned with silver spouts, and 
enjoy the convenience of a grove, and a circus. I 
saw a common fellow, who had probably been ac- 
tive in the fire, lounge out of the bath with this ex- 
clamation : "Some praise Romulus^ for building the 



192 

aty; and some praise Augustus for beautifying it; 
but I say, Long" live Nero for burning it." 

happiness. 

As a spectator of life, I am often led to observe 
what makes men happy, whilst they who are playing 
ihe game, seem scarcely ever to reflect on the causes 
of their pleasures and pains. 

It appears to me, that if men were to consult ra- 
tionally their own interests, their pursuits would al* 
ways tend to something positive and fixed. For I 
have observed, that those who follow diligently a 
trade or a science, the results of which can be weigh- 
ed and measured, are generally men of cheerful dis- 
position and unreserved conversation; whilst those 
whose hearts are fixed upon the esteem of society, 
or public reputation, are, for the most part, infected 
with gloom in their solitude, and jealousy in their 
commerce with the world. An instance of this has 
occurred in my own street : — Publius Virginius kept 
one of the smallest wine-shops in Rome, and was 
long in a state of great poverty : to make matters 
worse, as his neighbours thought, he had married 
early in life ; but this circumstance, though it nar- 
rowed his means, quickened his industry. By great 
care and frugality he accumulated a small sum of 
money, with which he bought a larger shop, and laid 
in a stock of better wine. His house acquired great 



193 

custom, partly from the merit of the owner, but 
more from the superior excellence of his commodity. 
Step by step he bought a vineyard, a villa, and, 
finally, a palace in Rome. This man was never seen 
to be out of spirits : in the worst days of his poverty^ 
he always said he knew what his best efforts could 
do, and was willing- and able to do it ; nor did he 
ever sink under the event of untoward fortune : he 
reckoned, justly, perhaps, that prudence must in 
time gain the victory over chance. 

His son Quintus is a very different man. Inhe- 
riting from his father a large property, he endea- 
voured, as much as possible, to forget the obligation. 
He would fain have had it believed, that the person 
to whose skill and talents he was indebted for an in- 
dependent fortune, was not the same Publius to 
whom he owed his life and education, but some re- 
mote ancestor, of whose history he knew nothing. 
Not only did he show a want of gratitude and right 
feeling by this behaviour, but exposed himself to 
general ridicule: it is become a matter of diversion 
for all the idle patricians, to remark the efforts he 
makes to push himself into their society. In the 
forum, he is always squeezing up to a judge, and 
whispering in his ear some trifling piece of news. 
He returns to his house with a greater number of 
clients, and is more generous in the distribution of 
the sportula, than any one. His suppers are the 
most sumptuous in Rome, and are attendeed by per- 
17 



194 

sons of the greatest eminence, both for rank and 
talent. Yet he is never satisfied with his situation. 
If he can find nobody to play at the palla with him, 
he thinks it is because he is the son of a victualler. 
IfPetrouius Arbiter gives a supper to which he is 
not invited, he thinks he is losing ground in the 
world. IfGordianhas theatricals at his villa, and 
he is not one of the company, he supposes that there 
is an inner circle of patrician society, infinitely more 
select, more refined, and more agreeable than that 
in which he moves, from which he shall always be 
excluded. Hence, his life is a series of little vexa- 
tions, and useless miseries : his invention is always 
on the rack to find a motive for discontent, and the 
slightest word of raillery is sufficient to poison the 
purest of his joys, and outweigh a solid year of osten- i 
tatious parade. 

I have made the same remark in contrasting those 
who seek for fame as poets, and those who seek for 
truth as men of science. The poet, prowling in 
public libraries, and collecting the breath of every 
blockhead who has a tongue, is mortified with the 
slightest hint of censure, and trembles at the touch 
of a critic's pen. His whole wealth is in praise, and 
a single word, the jest of a dinner, or the nonsense 
of an idle party, levels him at once from the high- 
est prosperity to the utmost poverty. He is always 
the — 



195 

Luctantem Icariis fluctibus Africum 
Mercator metuens. 

But the mathematician, or astronomical observer, 
has his object befoie him, and when he ascertain! 
the truth, he finds a treasure of which the world can- 
not rob him. He has all the eagerness of pursuit, all 
the pleasure of discovery ; and he can enjoy, alone 
and unseen, the solution of a problem, which nature 
seemed to have reserved as a secret for her wisest 
sons. Even in fame he has a security, whilst men 
of letters have only a chance, of immortality. The 
laurels of the poet whom the age celebrates, may 
in another century fade and fall from his head; but 
the labours of the man of science form part of a py- 
ramid, connected below with the rudest discoveries 
of shepherd nations, and supporting above the sublime 
apex which the course of ages and the appearance 

of a Newton, are necessary to complete. 

****** 

A battle has just taken place under the walls, be- 
tween the army of Viteilius, and that of Vespasian. 
The people went out to see it as an amusing sight, 
and applauded each party alternately as they pre- 
vailed. The city was taken, but notwithstanding 
the savage horrors of the scene, and the smoke which 
yet rises from the ashes of the capital, the inhabi- 
tants follow their occupations and even their amuse- 



196 

merits as usual.* There has at no time existed 
more licentiousness and debauchery. The baths, 
and the theatres, are all open ; I never expected to 
see man arrive to such a pitch of magnanimity. 
This rabble practise the best parts of the Stoic and 
Epicurean philosophy : they are Stoics in disregard- 
ing" evil, and Epicureans in enjoying pleasure. 

3r ?K n* H* t* *T* 

t 

Nonce Octo — I have been to pass a few days at 
the Tuscan villa of Pliny the younger. It is in a 
pretty situation, with a very fine view of the Apen- 
nines. As I approached it, I thought the house 
beautiful, as it is all covered with vines, which grow 
entirely over the roof: add to this a very pretty 
fountain playing in the court, and marble seats dis- 
posed here and there as convenience requires it ; I 
imagined I had at last escaped from the kingdom of 
splendour, to that of taste. But on approaching the 
house, I saw. to my sorrow, the box cut in the shapes 
of beasts and birds, besides being occasionally carved 
out into the letters of the owner's name. How- 
ever, the general arrangement is both pretty and 
convenient. 

Pliny's way of life is singular, but not irrational. 
In the morning he meditates in bed, and dictates to 
a secretary. At this time, no doubt, the thoughts 
are the clearest, though perhaps not always the most 

*Tac. H. 1. 3.83. 



197 

vigorous. It is when a man has been braced by air, 
and refreshed by food, that his mind is most capable 
of receiving and emitting" powerful ideas. But, to 
continue — about ten o'clock we meet Piiny in trie 
scystus or cryptoporticus ; he then gets into his car- 
riage, and returns to take a short sleep ; after this, 
he walks, and recites a Latin or Greek oration, for 
the sake of digestion. Exercise and the bath fol- 
low, and then to supper about four o'clock. During 
supper a book is read, and afterwards a comoedus or 
lyristes heard. We then walk again; and this is 
the hour for learned or familiar discussion. It is a 
proof of what I before remarked, that Pliny's con- 
versation at this time is raised to a tone far above 
that which he attains in the compositions at which 
he labours in the morning. These are often puerile 
and tiresome ; exquisite in siyle, but trite in matter. 
For instance, there is nothing at which he labours 
more than his familiar letters. The other day he 
read us one in which he asked the advice of his 
friend Fompeius Saturninus, about the publication 
of an oration he had made when he gave his library 
to his townsmen. He gives invincible reasons, in 
my opinion, for not making public a loeg discourse 
upon his own munificence, and tells his* friend how 
much more the reward of virtue consists in con- 
science, than in fame.* Yet he ends the whole 

*Lib. I.e. 8. 
17* 



198 

with an implicit deference to his friend's judgment, 
which can only imply, that he wants a sanction to 
his vanity, which his own reason cannot afford him. 
Indeed, he is a great coxcomb ; he never does a ge- 
nerous thing, without turning a pretty phrase, and 
all his words and actions seem to be prepared as 
rough notes for a panegyric on himself. Yet he is, 
after all, a worthy man, and I like him for this, that 
he does not give his freedmen bad wine, as a great 
man I mentioned before ; but the same that he drinks 
himself. Besides, he never has his slaves bound, 
and permits them to make wills in favour of any 
they please in the house; saying, very truly, that 
the house in which they serve, is their country and 
commonwealth. 

Upon returning to Rome, I found a book had ap- 
peared, which has long been anxiously expected — a 
history by Tacitus, beginning from the time of Galba. 
Pliny told me, a long time ago, that Tacitus had 
asked him to undertake this history, but that he had 
requested, and at length prevailed upon Tacitus to 
do it himself. The appearance of the work has 
made a great sensation ; and every one seems to be 
violent, either for or against Tacitus, except his 
friends. They say that they are greatly disappoint- 
ed; that his style falls off very much from that of the 
Life of Agricola, and of his essay De Moribus Ger- 
manorura ; that the form is neither that of a history, 
nor a treatise ; that he has omitted what was most 



199 

curious in the lives and manners of the emperors, 
and made unintelligible that which he has told ; and 
that it is clear, from the whole result, that he has 
overrated his talents, in supposing he could write a 
work which would go down to posterity. One of his 
particular friends, who whispered this last remark 
in my ear, added, " For my part, I am very sorry 
for it ; I think Cornelius a man of very great ta- 
lents for a short speech in the senate, or a sharp 
saying on the forum, and if he would take my advice, 
he would never take a pen in his hand." His ene- 
mies, on the contrary, are all enraged at the success 
of his book. His undisguised contempt for vice, 
whether it shines in purple, or skulks in rags; his 
impartial estimate of the talents and achievements 
of the men who have made a figure on the theatre 
of the world ; his powerful analysis of the moral 
qualities of a selfish nobility, and a degraded people, 
have excited in the breasts of many, an animosity 
which is only more violent from not being entirely 
avowed. Many had hoped that he would have aimed 
all the arrows in his quiver, at the monsters who 
have governed the empire : but they were not aware 
that a genius so profound, must soon discover the 
great political truth, that the vices of rulers are 
but the counterpart of the vices of the people go- 
verned. There must be cowardice and meanness in 
a nation which long submits to the authority of cru- 
elty and corruption. Thus we soon find Cornelius 



200 

Tacitus, describing' his countrymen, as W Homines 
qui nee totam servitutem y nee totam libertatem pati 
possunt" And, presently, we have not only the peo- 
ple, but many of the knights and senators condemned 
by the following' sentence : * 4 Ignavissimus quisque. et 
id res docuit in periculo non ausurus, nimii verbis, 
lingua feroces ; nemo scire, et omnes adfirmare : donee 
inopid veri et consensu errantium victus, sumpto tho- 
race, Galba, 8fc, And a few hours afterwards, when 
victory had declared for Otho, — " A Hum crederes 
senatum, alium populum, ruere cuncti in castra, anteire 
prozimos, certare cum prcecurrentibus, increpare 
Galbam. t laudare militum judicium, ezosculari Olhonis 
manum, quantoque magis falsa erant quo2 fiebant, 
tanto plurafacere?' For my own part, I esteem the 
history of Tacitus, as one of the greatest productions 
of the human mind. Every event which he draws 
rude from the pages of annalists and chroniclers, 
becomes in his hands an instructive lecture on hu- 
man character; and a thousand insignificant details 
are refined into one short sentence, as much greater 
in value as it is less in bulk than his original. Some, 
nay many, faults are to be found. The historian is 
too indignant with vice, to enter into details which 
to future ages might be matter of useful speculation ; 
and he works so much at a story as often to cut 
away the whole narrative, and leave nothing but the 
moral. But his great defect is his style. By dint 
of studying the ancients, and abhorring the moderns. 



201 

fie lias got an artificial and ambitious manner of 
writing-. That energy which Brutus and Scipio dis- 
played in action, he endeavours to throw into meta- 
phors and antitheses ; and the puerile conceits of 
Seneca, and the orators of the day, have been 
changed by him into strong but fallacious epigrams. 
This taste has led him at last to make an antithesis, 
where nothing but a plain fact was required. What 
can be more useless, and indeed more false, than the 
following turn : " Serums Galba iterum, P. primus 
consules inchoavire annum sibi ultimum, reipublicce 
prope supremum." His brevity is also very often 
affected : thus, having described the beginning of 
an insurrection, and the sending of an army against 
the insurgents, he drops the curtain with these 
words : " Viso militquies." 

They say he is writing another history, which is to 
begin from the death of Augustus. 

# * % # * # 

I promised Pliny to make, one day, a journal of 
all that 1 should do from the hour I rose, to that at 
which I went to bed. Yesterday he required of me 
to perform my promise ; and here it is :-— Six 
o'clock :f Got up * * * * 

Went to attend the levee of Virginius Rufus : a 
great many people there ; he received us very po- 

f These hours are modern, and not Roman. There have 
evidently been erasures and corrections in the JV1SS. En. 



202 

litely ; they say be will again be consul : Marcellus. 
who always used to speak ill of him, has written a 
panegyric upon him. 

Eight : — Went to the forum bv the side of the 
litter of Virginius ; heard an uninteresting cause ; 
lounged about in the forum amongst the newsmon- 
gers. A report that the equestrian order are to be 
deprived of the government of Egypt ; certainly no 
body of men forming the subjects of a sovereign, 
were ever, before themselves, the sovereigns of a 
great country ; besides, the knights being in fact 
merchants, govern ignorantly and selfishly. Heard 
a good story of Regulus : he went to attend Aurelia 
upon the occasion of her signing her will : he found 
her dressed in some very magnificent tunics ; they 
pleased his fancy so much, that he insisted upon her 
altering her will, to leave him these tunics as a le- 
gacy. She complied, but was so ill-natured as to 
get well. What she will think of his affection for 
her person, when she reflects upon his conduct at 
that critical time, is very doubtful. 

Twelve o'clock : — Those about me ran away in 
all directions, following some great man or other, in 
order to get the sportula. I went home to dinner ; 
tried to settle with my host an old account I have 
with him ; but he declared, that at twelve the busi- 
ness of the day was over. 

One o'clock : — Walked under the covered portico 
of Nerva; many senators there in litters, taking 



203 

their sedentary exercise. Tired of this gouty com- 
pany, went to the Campus Martius ; saw the young* 
men shooting" with arrows, riding- and playing at 
tennis ; — played for an hour. 

Three o'clock : — Went to the bath ; heard a poet 
declaiming : he made so much noise that Silius Ita- 
licus said he had a mind to perform a miracle ; and 
as Amphion had brought the stones together, this 
poet was endeavouring to separate them ; in fact, he 
made a bawling which seemed as if it would crack 
the building. 

Four o'clock : — Having put on my supper gar- 
ment, went to sup with Apicius, who is worthy of his 
two namesakes He had a red mullet of two pounds, 
which cost 4200 sestertii, (525 francs,) and wine of 
two or three hundred years old, which cost 76H ses- 
tertii an ounce. 

Amongst the guests was an ill-looking fellow from 
Tibur. He took away the garment which Apicius 
gave him ;* and not content with sending several 
dishes away from table to his wife and children, 
loaded himself with every thing that was served, 
from the eggs to the apples. I believe, also, I owe 
to him the loss of my napkin, which my slave could 
no where find to take back 

Between the courses, we played at dice, and set 
to seriously as soon as supper was over. I like play 

* Each guest was presented with a robe. 



204 

better than music : the latter soothes the conscience 
for a moment, but the sting soon returns; the 
former drives it out, and fills its place with less rack- 
ing emotion. Apicius sent us away with rich pre- 
sents. 

****** 
Nothing can be more absurd than the praises 
which are lavished on the judgment of Virgil. The 
critic, having praised the invention of Homer, wish- 
ed to say something of Virgil by way of antithesis. 
Had he said the execution of Virgil, the point would 
have been as good and the sense much better. Some 
critics, too, have found out that great art is shown 
in calling iEneas Dux Trojanus,* when he goes into 
the cave with Dido. But this is very weak, for it 
would have been burlesque to say, <c the pious 
iEaeas and Dido went into a cave together." And 
with regard to propriety, what shall we say to 
JEneas's character of himself? 

" Sum pius JEneaS) raptos qui ex hoste Penates, 
Classe veho mecumfamd super a-thera notus." 

And now let me say a few words on the character 
of iEneas, who is, in fact, the subject of the whole 
work. He is the hero of the poem, and with his 
Trojans, not one of whom, except himself, is the 

* The remark, which is made by Sir R. Steele, in the Tat- 
ter, seems to have been anticipated by some Roman critics. 



205 

least remarkable, is the only point of connection be^ 
tween the first and the second part of the story. 
Yet, with this, he is not only not interesting, but ex- 
cites positive disgust He arrives at Carthage, 
where he is received with the most cordial hospitali- 
ty by the queen ; he tells her a very long tale of the 
destruction of Troy, in the course of which he very 
much praises his own valour, and tells how he 
brought away his father, and left his wife to the 
flames. He then seduces poor Dido, and immediate- 
ly abandons her : this is said to be ordained by the 
gods ; which, however, is no excuse for Virgil, who 
governs the gods as well as others But, allowing 
the gods told him to repay the queen's hospitality, 
by violating her person, and driving her to commit 
suicide, they did not oblige him to enjoy a quiet 
sleep on board a ship the very night on which he 
left her. 

iEneas celsa in puppi, jam certus eundi 
Carpebat somnos, rebus jam rite paratis. 

After some insignificant events, he arrives in 
Italy, where he deprives Turnus, a native, of the 
hand of Lavinia, and wa^es an unjust war, to esta- 
blish himself in a country where he has no right to 
set his foot. Then, as for the courage he shows in 
the war, he fights on every occasion, except one, in 
impenetrable armour. Had Horace, or any other 
18 



206 

notorious coward, possessed a shield which saved 
his person from all danger, he certainly would not 
have run away. The barbarity with which the hero 
treats his enemies, although copied from Homer, is 
very unsuitable to the pious JRneas, and the feelings 
of the age of Augustus. What can we think of a 
hero who offers up one enemy as a human sacrifice; 
who taunts another in the most brutal way, whilst 
he kills him ; and who refuses to spare another who 
is a suppliant ? 

The character of ^Eneas by no means compre^ 
hends all the faults of judgment into which Virgil 
has fallen. There never was a greater sinking, than 
to carry us from the magnificent story of burning 
Troy, and the unequalled description of the shades 
below, to the insignificant intrigues and wars of 
some petty chieftains in Italy. And by way of inci- 
dents, whai can be more flat than Ascanius calliug' 
his cake a table, and the ships being all turned into 
nymphs ? 

Virgil's similies are rather too much like one ano- 
ther. In the ninth book, Evander is like a lion : 
a little after Turnus is a lion; and in the tenth book 
Turnus is a lion again. In the twelfth book he is a 
bull. The images are also sometimes low : Turnus 
is compared to a kettle boiling over; an! JEneas 
netting fire to the capital of his enemy, is like a coun- 
tryman fumigating a bee-hi^e. 

If I were to analyze the story, many ©ore faiiits 



207 

of judgment might be found ; but the diction and the 
poetry are so perfect, that I have no inclination to 
touch it farther. The foliage and the flowers so be- 
wilder and delight my senses, that I do not dare to 
prune the branches, which, in fact, injure the beauty 
of the plant. 

In looJlrog at the state of Rome, I find ample room 
for the ^enjoyment of my favourite passion of con- 
tempt. In fact, the Romans are nothing more than 
barbarians who have taken a rich city, and are riot- 
ing in the spoils. They are at once savage and ef- 
feminate, and have lost* all the virtues of their old 
condition, without acquiring much of the polish of 
their new situation. Look at their coliseum and 
their baths, their arches on the top of columns, and 
their pilasters running up the sides of their arches ! 
"What sculptors have they, who do not come from 
Greece? What poetry and what eloquence have 
they which is not copied from the Greeks? Where 
are their mathematicians, their inventors, their phi- 
losophers ? their Ku lid, their Archimedes, their 
Aristotle, their Plato? Their luxury is savage and 
insatiable gluttony ; their refinement odious and dis- 
gusting vice. 

What will become of them ? They still have the 
advantage of discipline over the neighbours who sur- 
round them. Perhaps tho<=e neighbours will, in time., 
attain a certain degree of knowledge, without losing 



208 

their old barbarous virtues, and then declare them- 
selves independent : at all events, the civilization of I 
the globe seems to be secured for ever. 



(The Manuscript ends here.) 



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